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Summer Session Kansan
Friday. June 21, 1963
Sources of Future Water Trouble Nation's Scientists
(Editor's Note: Water is life. Its abundance or lack has forged the fate of civilizations through the ages. With an ever-rising population and increasing use, what is the United States doing to assure there will be enough water to meet its needs over the coming years? Following is the first of three dispatches pointing up this vital problem and the measures being taken to meet it.)
By Leroy Pope United Press International
NEW YORK—(UPI) —You turn the tap, fill the tumbler with the cool, clear, colorless liquid and drink it off.
You're refreshed. But unless you've ever really suffered from lack of water, you probably won't give it a second thought.
Like the air we breathe, water is one of life's necessities that is most apt to be taken for granted.
Yet it poses one of the greatest challenges facing a world constantly growing in population—that there always will be enough water to sustain life.
Here in the United States the problem varies with location. So do the measures taken to meet it. Let's take a look first at one region that over the years has suffered acutely from lack of water—the southern half of the Great Plains.
FOR SEVERAL YEARS now. some meteorologists have been predicting another severe drought cycle will strike that area about 1970.
Archaeologists say droughts on the Great Plains in centuries past have lasted anywhere from 2 or 3 years to 40 years.
In our own time, we remember the drought of the early 1930s that created the Dust Bowl and the pathetic migration of the Okies to California.
There was another such drought in the same region in the mid-1950s. But that time no Dust Bowl was created. Farmers and agricultural scientists had learned much since the 1930s.
They had learned, for instance, two methods of "dry farming." One is a deep plowing method with heavy tractors to bring up stable clods and tap moisture unreachable by older cultivation habits.
The other eliminates plowing altogether; the surface of the soil is cut merely in narrow slits for seed. But this method, the soil is never without some herbage cover to keep it from blowing away.
Farmers also learned you can't hope for a cash crop of wheat, cotton or sorghum every year on these lands. The dry years are inevitable, so it pays to plant only cover crops such as Sudan grass when drought is predicted.
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BUT THESE dry farming and rotation techniques are expensive; they require large farms. Gradually the small farmer is being forced out of the Great Plains areas subject to the drought cycle, except where abundant irrigation water is available.
However, there are certain areas of the Southern Great Plains that no longer have irrigation water available and that actually are running out of water altogether at the rate they are using it.
The High Plains of Texas are one such section—the most dramatic area of water depletion in the country. This region of 22 million acres extending southward from the Oklahoma Panhandle and eastward from New Mexico is using up 10 times as
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much water each year as soaks into the ground from rainfall.
The people of the High Plains greatly increased their pumping of water from the ground for irrigation in the 1950s. The depletion is so great that in some parts of the region, the soil is drying out and sinking.
In fact, desertation has started on a small scale in the High Plains. Although scientists, water experts and agricultural experts are well aware of the peril in the High Plains, many people who live there do not seem to be.
Four Students Cited for Work In Law School
Recognition for outstanding work in the University of Kansas School of Law has been given four recent law graduates, it was announced by Dean James K. Logan.
Order of the Coif, the highest law school honor, was bestowed on Charles A. Chartier of Clyde, David Mills of Arkansas City, and Stephen M. Blaes of Wichita.
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Charles E. Wetzler, Marysville, received the U.S. Law Week subscription award for the most consistent scholastic progress in the final year of study. The award consists of a one-year subscription, valued at $100, to the Law Week publication which includes court decisions, federal agency rulings and Supreme Court opinions.
Chartier is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Delbert R. Chartier. A member of Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, he held a School of Law scholarship and an American Jurisprudence award for outstanding classroom work.
MEMBERS OF ORDER of the Coif, which is comparable to the undergraduate Phi Beta Kappa, are chosen from the upper ten per cent of the graduating class. Consideration is given not only to scholastic achievement, but to service to the school and publication in the Kansas Law Review.
Aubrey G. Linville and Robert Crawford, both of Salina, were named to Order of the Coif earlier this year.
The three new members have served on the Law Review. Mills and Chartier held positions on the Law Review Board of Governors, with Mills serving as editor-in-chief the spring semester.
MILLS IS THE son of Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm M. Mills. He was secretary of the Student Bar Association, Chief Justice of the Student Court, member of the honor committee, member of Phi Delta Phi, and holder of a School of Law scholarship.
Blaes is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Omer W. Elaes. He held one of two Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity prize scholarships, the Nathan Burkan first place award for legal research and writing, several American Jurisprudence awards, and he was an officer of his third year class.
They not only continue to pump too much water for irrigation, but some of the towns even try to bring in industries that are big consumers of water.
Take a Vacation from WASH DAY DRUDGERY
ACCORDING TO papers published in the Journal of the American Waterworks Association and various scientific journals, the people of the High Plains—and of some other areas in the United States with similar conditions—must face up to the reality.
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GRAVITT'S FAST LAUNDRY SERVICE
They must accept the facts that their regions cannot support any more irrigated farming, not even as much as they have now, and that they cannot support industries that consume water.
But that doesn't mean these hopelessly water-short areas need be depopulated. They still can support a small population, small agriculture, and manufacturing that doesn't consume water.
According to hydrologist William L. Broadhurst of Lubbock, Tex., a great deal already is being done to capture more of the rainfall in the High Plains and store it underground by means of "recharge wells."
You save time and trouble at Gravitt's. Drop off your laundry and pick it up later—washed, fluff dried, and neatly folded.
BROADHURST RECOUNTS the experiments of the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District to recapture a greater percentage of the estimated annual runoff of 1.4 million acre feet of surface water by means of these wells.
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He says much of this surface water —rain water—collects in natural depressions called playa lakes. These lakes are shallow and evaporation from them is extremely rapid. What is worse, they have impervious bottoms of clay and colloidal soil which don't allow the water to sink into the water-bearing subsoil.
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The "recharge well," a technique also used in other parts of the country, literally consists of a well dug from the bottom of the playa lake into the sands below, so the lake will drain into the sands rapidly after a big rain.
More than 100 of these experimental recharge wells have been dug in the High Plains.
The technique works, but in the High Plains is not easy. There are many problems, not the least of which is the danger of clogging up the water-bearing sands below with clay and colloidal material from the playa lake bed.
But a great deal more along this line and along other water conservation lines must be done if the High Plains are to remain habitable.
Open House Starts Today
A crowd of 500-600 are expected to attend today's Kansas Union open house, predicted Mrs. Katherine Giele, activities advisor.
Mrs. Giele based the estimate on the attendance of the first summer open house held by the Kansas Union last summer. "It was so successful that we decided to have another one this year," she said.
THIS EVENING from 5:00 p.m.
until 9:00 p.m. in the Prairie Room,
the guests will be served either a
steak special or a sea food plate for $1.40.
From 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m., there will be free bowling and billiards at the Jaybowl.
During the afternoon and evening, the movie "Pal Joey," starring Rita Hayworth. Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak, will be shown in the Forum Room at 3:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m. and again at 9:00 p.m. for an admission charge of $35.
The purpose of Open House is to acquaint summer school students with some of the social and recreational aspects of the University, Mrs. Giele said.
Read the
CLASSIFIEDS
Penalty Begins Monday
A penalty of two dollars each day for late payment of fees goes in effect beginning Monday, reported James K. Hitt, registrar.
Tomorrow is the last day that summer session students will be allowed to pay fees at the business office between 9:00 and 12:00. The enrollment of any student whose fees are not paid by Thursday, June 27, will be cancelled.
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Turn to the want ads in the Kansan every day. They are always on the next to the last page. You can find a bargain on a used car... apartment for rent . . . typing services . . . all kinds of wonderful buys. It's a good and thrifty habit to read the want ads every day. You're sure to find a bargain for yourself.
SUMMER SESSION
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Phone KU 376 to place your ad