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Articles by Lucas Bessire
Contamination, climate change and political drama stall clean water for Colorado’s Arkansas Valley
The western stretch of the Arkansas River, which flows from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains across the plains of southeastern Colorado, is in trouble. That trouble is compounded by uncertainty about what, exactly, is polluting and drying the river, and how such problems can be fixed. Overshadowed by the ongoing political brawl over the Colorado River, the Arkansas River Valley rarely appears in national news. But since Dec.
High Plains and the Future of Water
Author Alice Hoffman stated, “I believe we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.” Last fall’s read certainly explored the connection. This spring, however, we will look at the human costs of the lack of such an essential and perhaps even sacred element as water.
The West’s Unprecedented Water Crisis Is Worsening
Acute scarcity drives the search for water underground. But the West’s major aquifers are in trouble, too. About the author: Lucas Bessire is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma and author of Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains. GARDEN CITY, Kan.—A century after the Dust Bowl, another environmental catastrophe is coming to the High Plains of western Kansas.
Our 2021 Food and Farming Holiday Book Gift Guide
We believe in the power of the written word and take special pride in our book coverage at Civil Eats. All year long, our editors and contributors read dozens of books that we believe are timely, relevant, and important to deepening our knowledge of food and agriculture, and we are grateful to the many authors who take time to speak to us about their work. As 2021 draws to a close, we’ve selected some of the best books to read and share as holiday gifts.
How Did Kansas Become Ground Zero For the Imminent Water Crisis?
On the high plains of western Kansas, there is no clear line between water and second chances. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was in search of both when I turned my Prius off a two-lane highway and onto the washboard gravel that led back to the farm. After fifteen years, the land matched my memories of it. I recalled precisely the vault of space, the circled sky the most dominant feature and the sun a physical weight.
Opinion: Save the aquifers of eastern Colorado and western Kansas
It is no secret that the Great Plains is facing a groundwater crisis. This is particularly obvious in eastern Colorado and western Kansas, where much of the Ogallala aquifer is in steep and well-documented decline. Aquifer depletion is an important part of the story about mega-droughts, climate change and water conflicts in the American West. As the summers get hotter and droughts intensify, farmers and city planners place more demands on Plains groundwater.
Aquifer loss is a generational test of Kansas values and obligations | Commentary
An irrigation pivot sprays water onto a young corn crop in Grant County, Kan., in 2015. Water from the Ogallala aquifer, the main water source for farmers in western Kansas, has dropped as much as 200 feet is some areas. Travis Heying File photo Kansas is facing a groundwater crisis. The problems are painfully obvious in southwestern Kansas, where much of the Ogallala Aquifer is in steep and well-documented decline. I grew up on those lands, and my family farmed and ranched there for generations.
" Nous ne sommes plus humains " : la fin du monde vue par des Indiens Ayoreo
Il y a 70 ans, « les Ayoreode », les « êtres humains », que l’on connaît aujourd’hui ordinairement sous le nom d’« Indiens Ayoreo », un groupe ethnique transnational vivant dans les régions centrales de l’Amérique du Sud et qui compte environ 6 000 membres, ne formaient pas un groupe ethnique identifiable.
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