Aquifer Water Level Tables Available
Glasscock Groundwater Conservation District Manager Rick Harston presented the latest aquifer water level tables at the district’s board of directors’ meeting Feb. 19.
The Edwards Trinity in Glasscock County is up 2.4 feet this year over last, and is approximately one foot above its 1983 level. That same aquifer in Reagan County is about the same as last year, but is approximately 9 feet lower than its 1983 level. Harston credits reduced irrigation for this year’s figures.
The Glasscock County Ogallala aquifer is down about 4.5 feet since last year. Even so, the Ogallala is five feet above its 1984 level. Harston says he can’t explain the Ogallala figures, but he does see a correlation between the amount of acreage in Conservation Reserve Programs (CRP) and water levels. He said when large tracts of land in the northern part of the county went into CRP, the level of the Ogallala went up, and more recently, when several tracts were taken out of CRP and put back into cultivation (and irrigation), the water level has gone down.
Harston stresses that GGCD’s water table figures are simple averages of the wells he measures each year, and are not totally accurate, since for various reasons, he isn’t always able to measure exactly the same wells every year. Graphs of the water levels are available at the GGCD office in Garden City.