Water Underneath

Under the High Plains, an ancient reservoir of water took thousands of years to fill and a few generations to drain. The Water Underneath follows America's disappearing aquifers from the center-pivot fields of the Plains to the valley that sank in California, and to the towns where the tap now coughs air. You will learn why no one had drawn the map of what was left, who actually owns the water under a farm, how one county's bargain changed a community, and why some farmers are going back to dryland. The book explains California's groundwater law and the fight over it, the town that bought a ranch to secure its supply, the alfalfa grown in the desert, and a hundred years of water rights, proven or not. It also looks at what is coming: rivers that come up short, servers in the desert drawing their share, and seas moving inland to foul the wells. Then it asks what putting water back would take. For readers who want to understand the drought headlines, farm country, or the glass of water on their own counter, this is the story of what the ground remembers.