The Market Value of Water in the Ogallala Aquifer

Abstract

The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the Ogallala Formation or the High Plains aquifer, is a 174,000-square-mile body of water that underlies parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. The Ogallala contains about 3.5 billion acre-feet of water (Symposium II 1984), but in many areas the aquifer has been declining from continued deep well pumping (Sloggett and Dickason 1986). The aquifer receives little recharge, especially in the southern portion, and as such represents a finite nonrenewable resource stock. As a result of the concerns of residents of the High Plains States over declines in the Ogallala Aquifer, Congress authorized the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a Six-State Regional Resources Study of the Ogallala in 1976 (High Plains Associates 1982). The study indicated, even under the most effective water conservation program, more than a million acres of farmland then