The Ogallala Aquifer: A Case Study

Groundwater: What Can The Golf Course Industry Do to Protect This Valuable Natural Resource? The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it lies under about 174,000 square miles in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It was named in 1899 by N.H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. It waters one fifth of U.S. irrigated land. In some parts of the Ogallala Aquifer that stretches across eight states in the Great Plains, aquifer depletion has caused increased pumping costs and decreased land values, forcing some farmers into bankruptcy. The Ogallala Aquifer is being depleted at a rate of 12 billion cubic meters per year. Some estimates say it will dry up in as little as 25 years. Many farmers in the Texas
High Plains, which rely particularly on the underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as they become aware of the hazards of over pumping. Golf courses in this region are facing a big problem in this region. If the aquifer is dwindling and the cities in the south are turning into dust bowls, there will be no water for golf courses to water new grasses and already existing grasses properly. The aquifer's water quality is very poor.
Industrial agriculture with its reliance on chemicals and its failure to adequately address soil erosion problems is guilty of depleting water resources. Ignorance and carelessness are in fact the main factors behind the increasing water quality deterioration. First, of course, any further ground water has to be pumped from deeper and deeper levels, and such water is not only more expensive to extract in terms of deeper wells and more powerful pumps, but is more likely to be chemically poor in quality. Second, the drop in the water table indicates that more ground water is being pumped than is being recharged, so that water supplies of the future are being mortgaged for present gain. Third, there are indirect effects of lowering the water table that are more insidious but more damaging. Natural vegetation may no longer be able to put down its roots deep enough to reach ground water, especially if there is a prolonged dry season, and it is
degraded. The Attorney General's office decided to examine pesticide use on Long Island golf courses because pesticides pose special risks on the Island. Long Island's nearly three million people depend on groundwater as their only source of drinking water. This irreplaceable resource is vulnerable to contamination by surface-applied pesticides. Large areas of the island's groundwater lie beneath a sandy, porous surface soil layer with little organic matter to adsorb pesticides. This type of soil provides little if any barrier against contaminants reaching the groundwater. Although Long Island's geology and the dependence of such a large population on a single source of drinking water is unusual, groundwater quality in other areas of the state may also be jeopardized by pesticide use. The concerns raised in the report could apply to several other parts of the state where turf care pesticides are heavily used over aquifers. Therefore, the problem needs to be looked at because of the amount of people at risk. Some of the side effects of the pesticides used includes damage to a fetus, impairs the nervous system, decrease in red blood cell count and damage to the eyes. The State Legislature has already acted to protect Long Island's groundwater from some threats by ordering all landfills to close because of the danger they posed by leaking contaminants. The Legislature also enacted legislation banning certain septic tank cleaners on Long Island. In 1990, the Attorney General's office surveyed 107 private and public golf courses in Nassau and Suffolk counties to determine the identity, amounts and patterns of use of pesticides on golf courses. Leaching is downward movement by water of dissolved or suspended minerals, fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides and other substances through the soil. When the water reaches the level of groundwater, it contaminates the groundwater. This ground water is used by golf courses, residential citizens and other companies in the area. Another way the contaminated water reaches usable water is by runoff. Runoff is part of the precipitation, snow melt, or irrigation water that appears in uncontrolled surface streams, rivers, drains or sewers. From these sources, it reaches the water everyone uses for drinking water, irrigation and many other uses. Maintaining water quality is critical to the long-term success of the turf industry. Both groundwater and surface waters must be protected through proper fertilizer and pesticide application practices. Research indicates that when pesticides and fertilizers are properly used, the chances for movement of most of these materials into ground or surface water are minimal. Each product needs to be carefully evaluated to assess product characteristics, site conditions, and environmental factors. A primary concern when applying pesticides is to determine if the application site is vulnerable to ground or surface water contamination. In most cases, level areas away from surface waters like rivers, lakes, or wetlands will not be prone to pesticide runoff and if the depth to groundwater is greater than 50 feet on fine-textured soils, the chances for deep percolation of pesticides is greatly reduced. More attention to the pesticide's characteristics is needed when applications are made to sandy soils with little organic matter, or slopped areas with thin turf and low infiltration rates. The industry has taken a multifaceted approach to the problem, including the development of new grass varieties that use less water or can tolerate poor quality water, new technologies that improve the efficiency of the irrigation system, best management practices in golf course maintenance that result in less water use, alternative water sources that reduce or eliminate the use of clean water, golf course design concepts that minimize the area maintained with grasses that require considerable use of water; and programs that educate golf course superintendents and other water users about opportunities for ongoing water conservation.