Ogallala Blue: Water and Life of the High Plains.

Beneath the sprawling, flat midsection of this country lies an underground aquifer, called the Ogallala that's large enough to fill Lake Erie nine times over. This water is what makes possible the area's crops of corn, cotton, wheat, and sorghum. However, Ashworth notes, the store of water is rapidly shrinking. People are pumping water from the Ogallala three times as fast as rain, runoff, and snowmelt can replace it. Five trillion gallons of water are pumped from the Ogallala aquifer annually, and if that resource ever dries up, more than $20 billion worth of food and fiber would be quickly lost from the world market. Ashworth chronicles the history of the aquifer and people's increasingly sophisticated methods of tapping it. The author also details various efforts under way, planned, and proposed for helping natural processes recharge the aquifer. Norton, 2006, 330 p., hardcover, $26.95.