Traveling Through Nebraska's Ogallala Aqueduct
The Ogallala Aqueduct is a complex system of water management infrastructure that spans across the state of Nebraska, United States, and plays a vital role in supporting the region's agricultural sector. As part of the larger Ogallala Formation, which is one of the world's largest aquifers, the aqueduct brings water from the Platte and Missouri rivers to supplement groundwater supplies and meet the needs of urban and rural communities.
One notable example of the Ogallala Aqueduct's capacity is the Lincoln Water System, which supplies drinking water to the state's capital city of Lincoln, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska. In the event of drought or water shortages, the aqueduct helps channel water from nearby lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, including Branched Oak Lake, approximately 20 miles northwest of Lincoln, and Lake McConaughy, situated about 260 miles west of the city near Ogallala, Nebraska.
To better understand the aqueduct's development, a review of the timeline of major milestones is essential. Construction began in the 1960s with the creation of Lake McConaughy as a critical component in serving the aqueduct. The 40-mile lakeside tunnel and canal to the city of Ogallala, later named the lake, enables pumping of surplus water during high-river flow times for irrigation of nearby agricultural fields during low-flow summer periods. A second example involves the nearby Yellow sub-basin diversion project to channel up to 7,800 gallons per minute of Platte River water via Ogallala Aqueduct infrastructure to alleviate irrigators' perennial requests due to deplete deeper geological Ogallala Formation sediment basins.
A significant issue pertinent to the long-term sustainability of the Ogallala Formation and the aqueduct remains a present concern. Most crucially, local agricultural practices heavily rely on non-renewable water resources by rapidly pumping those resource for a dwindling but highly profit-intensive few agricultural crops such as corn, sunflowers, and alfalfa to support the food supply for wider livestock operations in adjacent states, typically including Kansas to the south. To maximize beneficial water capture a comprehensive updated state floodplain mapping will allow several major water-shed riparian water-basin reconstruction efforts.
Also key in the multi-generational efforts of regional leaders to promote fair water resource sharing arrangements are the Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area and the Kingsley Dam, a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, in Keith County, western Nebraska. Here millions of residents and visitors engage each year in participating in water-conscious outdoor recreational activities, such as picnicking or hiking. This highlights the dual needs surrounding large regional river sedimentary bed 'lakes'.
The water supply created by the Ogallala Aqueduct in Nebraska underscores a broader theme present throughout much of the United States west of the 100th meridian - namely addressing growing scarcity of renewable sources of groundwater by supplementing stored channel and lake resources at a cost using inefficient ground power to channel remote surface water back into aquifers.
At the 1980 federal and state reapportionment that extended the Clean Water Act terms to environmental advocacy and states having non-indian-rez tribal ground resource protections, updated regulations led to more robust public engagement procedures.
Located along both sides of the Tri-State Ogallala Aquifer are numerous ranches that range cow-calf and haying to farming, small enterprises co-actually running closely surrounding thousands of townships, rural clusters villages without out-migration. Neighbors often use newly mapped watershed areas overlying Ogallala A Basin zones thereby bringing greater resilience when natural disaster situation needs occur.
The many specific projects put forward to sustainably manage aquifer resource levels while preserving natural water cycles between the Ogallala Aqueduct and natural river drainage and the surrounding fertile valleys, clearly call for persistent water cooperation discussions - especially as local, regional inter-operational water planning for regional watershed public information may reveal previously lesser understood opportunities.
One notable example of the Ogallala Aqueduct's capacity is the Lincoln Water System, which supplies drinking water to the state's capital city of Lincoln, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska. In the event of drought or water shortages, the aqueduct helps channel water from nearby lakes, reservoirs, and rivers, including Branched Oak Lake, approximately 20 miles northwest of Lincoln, and Lake McConaughy, situated about 260 miles west of the city near Ogallala, Nebraska.
To better understand the aqueduct's development, a review of the timeline of major milestones is essential. Construction began in the 1960s with the creation of Lake McConaughy as a critical component in serving the aqueduct. The 40-mile lakeside tunnel and canal to the city of Ogallala, later named the lake, enables pumping of surplus water during high-river flow times for irrigation of nearby agricultural fields during low-flow summer periods. A second example involves the nearby Yellow sub-basin diversion project to channel up to 7,800 gallons per minute of Platte River water via Ogallala Aqueduct infrastructure to alleviate irrigators' perennial requests due to deplete deeper geological Ogallala Formation sediment basins.
A significant issue pertinent to the long-term sustainability of the Ogallala Formation and the aqueduct remains a present concern. Most crucially, local agricultural practices heavily rely on non-renewable water resources by rapidly pumping those resource for a dwindling but highly profit-intensive few agricultural crops such as corn, sunflowers, and alfalfa to support the food supply for wider livestock operations in adjacent states, typically including Kansas to the south. To maximize beneficial water capture a comprehensive updated state floodplain mapping will allow several major water-shed riparian water-basin reconstruction efforts.
Also key in the multi-generational efforts of regional leaders to promote fair water resource sharing arrangements are the Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area and the Kingsley Dam, a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, in Keith County, western Nebraska. Here millions of residents and visitors engage each year in participating in water-conscious outdoor recreational activities, such as picnicking or hiking. This highlights the dual needs surrounding large regional river sedimentary bed 'lakes'.
The water supply created by the Ogallala Aqueduct in Nebraska underscores a broader theme present throughout much of the United States west of the 100th meridian - namely addressing growing scarcity of renewable sources of groundwater by supplementing stored channel and lake resources at a cost using inefficient ground power to channel remote surface water back into aquifers.
At the 1980 federal and state reapportionment that extended the Clean Water Act terms to environmental advocacy and states having non-indian-rez tribal ground resource protections, updated regulations led to more robust public engagement procedures.
Located along both sides of the Tri-State Ogallala Aquifer are numerous ranches that range cow-calf and haying to farming, small enterprises co-actually running closely surrounding thousands of townships, rural clusters villages without out-migration. Neighbors often use newly mapped watershed areas overlying Ogallala A Basin zones thereby bringing greater resilience when natural disaster situation needs occur.
The many specific projects put forward to sustainably manage aquifer resource levels while preserving natural water cycles between the Ogallala Aqueduct and natural river drainage and the surrounding fertile valleys, clearly call for persistent water cooperation discussions - especially as local, regional inter-operational water planning for regional watershed public information may reveal previously lesser understood opportunities.
