Google earth and water pivots out west

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trevorgreycattleco

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I was messing around on google earth a little bit ago. I zoomed down on the plain states. I never dreamed there were that many irrigation pivots. That stuff barely is seen here. I see why now folks are fighting over water. How long till the underground lake or whatever it is dries up? Will it dry up? Why can't we build pipelines beside the oil lines and pump water throughout the west? Can cattle survive on a large scale like they are now without pivot farming? Maybe I just need to drink another one. Curiosity gets me every time.
 

chambero

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When you try envision aquifers, dont think underground lakes - think sponge.  Most aquifers are in underground layers of sandstone or fractured limestone.  Sandstone is actually about 20-40% open pore spaces that hold water and can allow it to move through.

Most of our aquifers accumulated water following the last ice age when the climate was much wetter.

Some aquifers get recharged from rainfall or rivers where the rock layers intersect the ground surface.

There massive quantities of water underground, but they will eventually go dry - at least in areas that dont have recharge.

We move water all over the western US via huge transmission pipelines, mostly to urban areas.
 

knabe

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For interesting reads on water read about Wesley Powell and also about San Francico. Like LA it had no water. There are literally shrines built to celebrate projects delivering water to San Francisco.

Look up Sunol water temple and Pulgas water temple
 

sackshowcattle

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Not all pivots are hooked to wells. In this state if they are you have to have an augmentation plan showing were you are putting a percentage of the water back into the aqufer. This all went through  20 some years ago. Now a good portion of them are ran off of ditch water were they calculate how much your pumping or dump it into a holding pond and you pump out of that. Either way they calculate acre feet of water same  as they would for flood irrigation. If you are still running wells you have to have so many water rights to release back into the river to go into the storage system and leach back into the aquafer.  the reason for the pivots is because what would take 4 or 5 days to get across flood irrigating you could send the pivot around in a few hours. It might put down less water at once but there is a lot less chance of burn and production loss during the high temp times running the pivot at a faster speed at more frequent intervals.
 

trevorgreycattleco

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Wow. They keep a tight ship on this deal. Can't say I blame them. I remember when A@T was giving me directions in northwest Nebraska it was a lot of "take a left at the irrigation ditch" as I didn't see road signs or much pavement for that matter. Sounds to me the water situation is being managed pretty darn good already. I feel better. I read a article where lots of ranchers in Texas are moving to Nebraska. I was wondering how many more head the state can hold? I think Texas is down to 13% and Nebraska is up to 7% now.
 

nkotb

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sackshowcattle said:
Not all pivots are hooked to wells. In this state if they are you have to have an augmentation plan showing were you are putting a percentage of the water back into the aqufer. This all went through  20 some years ago. Now a good portion of them are ran off of ditch water were they calculate how much your pumping or dump it into a holding pond and you pump out of that. Either way they calculate acre feet of water same  as they would for flood irrigation. If you are still running wells you have to have so many water rights to release back into the river to go into the storage system and leach back into the aquafer.  the reason for the pivots is because what would take 4 or 5 days to get across flood irrigating you could send the pivot around in a few hours. It might put down less water at once but there is a lot less chance of burn and production loss during the high temp times running the pivot at a faster speed at more frequent intervals.

I would disagree with a one of your points, pivots take much more than a couple hours to run around a full quarter, of which you are irrigating around 120 acres.  All irrigation water in Kansas is tightly controlled and you are only allowed to pump a certain number of acre inches/year, and have to monitor wells for depth to water table and how many gallons were pumped every year and send that information in to the state.  Pivots are also much more efficient than flood irrigation, and there are certain things you can do to make irrigation more efficient, such as drip tape. 
 

aj

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The man who invented pivots lived in Eastern Colorado.....Gigot bought the patent. I have a 90 acre circle. I essentially am allowed to put on 10 inches a water per year. So if it doesn't rain I would come up short of being able to plant corn or say alfalfa it. There is a water meter that records water pumped. Right now I have half a circle of feed. I worked up half cause I couldn't keep. I am (windshield wiping) the north half of the circle right now. Bottled water costs more per ounce than gasoline. It is gold. It is where bitter battles are being fought over it in courrts. Kansas has sued Colorado over water rights. One interesting fact is that Colorado is the only state that does not have water running into it. All the water runs out of it from the mountains. L.A. is a diaster waiting because of the way water is distributed there. A good book to read is "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner published 1993. He is a little bit left of center but this is a great book.
 

aj

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John Wesley Powells trip down the Colorado is an amazing read. Took boats down the damn thing.....got pinned in by canyon wall. Heat and starvation damn near took the whole bunch out.
 

comercialfarmer

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I don't see how there has not been an industrial sized water purification system developed for the costal cities with all the salt water available.  I saw a device over 10 years ago on Jay Leno or something like that with a guy promoting a device and what he could do for the African situation.  It purified anything and everything and was suppose to be very economical.  Took seconds.  He poored oil and some other junk in a bucket of water, ran his device and then drank a glass. 

I stopped worrying about the coasts at that time.  I figured it wouldn't be long until they were piping the water inland for crop production. 
 

aj

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Thats true. There isn't a shortage of water, there is a shortage of non salt water. There must be something to hold the deal up.If you have a meaga earthquake that screws up the water channels you got one hell of mess. That is a lot of people sitting in a desert.
 

trevorgreycattleco

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commercialfarmer said:
I don't see how there has not been an industrial sized water purification system developed for the costal cities with all the salt water available.  I saw a device over 10 years ago on Jay Leno or something like that with a guy promoting a device and what he could do for the African situation.  It purified anything and everything and was suppose to be very economical.  Took seconds.  He poored oil and some other junk in a bucket of water, ran his device and then drank a glass. 

I stopped worrying about the coasts at that time.  I figured it wouldn't be long until they were piping the water inland for crop production. 



I wonder why on earth that hasn't happened yet? Is this another classic example of our govt ability to sweep it under the rug because the big lobbyist weren't getting a piece of the action. I think eventually we will have no choice but to use salt water. That or start melting icebergs and pump that water down here.
 

aj

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I think you are fined and the next year you loose water rights. Which is interesting. Say a farmer is going broke ahe over pumps...doesn't pay fine....looses water rights.....bankruptcy. The ground sells........with no water rights? Or can you get them back?
 

chambero

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I'm in the water business in Tx.  People like cheap water bills.  The government or lobbyists have nothing to do with the lack of desalinazation plants.  Its economics.  The technology exists, it is just very expensive to run a desal plant.  It takes enormous amounts of energy and you wind up with lots of brine waste.  People constantly object to deep injection disposal.  So, when water gets really expensive from other sources, desal will be a viable option.  We really arent faced with true water shortages in most places - we are faced with shortages of cheap water - both in cities and for ag.
 

obie105

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In our area in Illinois I think every field has one. Our water table is very close to the surface tho for our house we have a sand point well in our basement. I don't believe there are many restrictions here on the water use tho. Most run theirs from May on and never turn them off.
 

nkotb

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trevorgreycattleco said:
What happens if you use to much water in a season? Fines out the wazoo?

Fines the first season, don't lose the water rights until they consider you a "habitual abuser."  Something new that they are trying is to stretch it over a three year period, and give you X inches of rain over that 3 year period, that way if you get 1 year of really wet, then the next is dry, you can take what you saved in the first year and pump extra in the second.  Interesting to note, that if you underpump by a certain percentage for a number of years they will actually reduce the number of gallons that you can pump from there on out, so even in really wet years, most wells still run to make sure they are not discounted in future years.  Something the 3 year average rule is supposed to take care of.
 

knabe

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we used to have a desalt plant at our water plant that serves a lot of five acre parcels for drinking water only.  brine waste and maintenance were huge issues so we quit. 

no one drinks the water.  tds is really high 1500 so we have to replace things all the time.

even returning brine waste to the ocean is a problem and must be vigorously mixed as it doesn't contain oxygen and sinks and can harm aquatic life, again if not mixed during it's return.  people are obviously studying this technology, but it requires lots of energy and expensive membranes which must be maintained carefully.  there is a lot to go wrong.
 

sackshowcattle

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Actually my pivot runs at .65 of an inch and covers that in about 21 hours. When its hot I run it fast enough to cover everything in 11 hours to put it down at night and have less of a chance ov evaporation or cooking the leaves. So yes it is a matter of hours compaired to days to flood irrigate. the real money is made when they red tag wells that aren't augmented. They charge around 60 or 70 grand to set it up and if you don't set one up and run the state fines you 10 grand a day you run illegally. Water is bigger business than land here.
 

aj

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I know that the city of Oakley Ks.......when the city pumps alot of water......in the summer time.......actually kills the water volume of about 5 surrounding pivots. One guy purchased one of these pivots without realizing this and it damn near broke him. So there is a water war so to speak. On my pivot I am currently at 65% of my alloted water rights. When 365 comes around on my meter it is over for the year.
 
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