Hi All,The wife and I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday in the local NRD offices going over the water table histories in this part of the state (Western NE). We are toying with the idea of buying another tract of land and wanted to know what the ground water figures showed for the past few years in the differing areas. Things just are not good here. Due to the extreme dry conditions in our part of the country, ground water has been dropping at an alarming rate (5' in the past 10 years), which heretofore has been unheard of. According to the officials, we are only about one season away from the water from all irrigation wells being "rationed" out. 100 miles southwest of us, this is already being done & and the drilling of any new wells is banned. I used to have mixed feelings about the state boys having their fingers on the 'water throttle', but after seeing the maps showing all of the irrigation wells, I've changed my tune. There are so many 1,000 & 1500 gpm pipes stuck in the ground out here that this region looks like an oversized pincushion. So, controlling the pumping now seems to me to be a good thing. But yet, 300 miles to the east of us, the farmers cannot get the water to run off fast enough because they are totally saturated down there. Water tables keep dropping and the land prices keep rising. Must be a population thing. So, it looks as though we are going to be learning how to scratch the dirt in a dry land fashion. Please send rain, Allan
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