Every Farmer Took the Free Water and Laughed at His Well — 15 Years Later He Was the Only One Left – In the spring of 1972, a man from the federal government drove into Sheridan County, Kansas, in a white Ford sedan with a briefcase full of promises. His name was Richard Tully, and he worked for the Bureau of Reclamation. He had a sunburn, a firm handshake, and a presentation he’d given 47 times in 47 counties across the Great Plains.
The presentation was always the same. The message was always the same. water. Specifically, the Ogalala aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in North America, stretching from South Dakota to Texas, holding enough water to fill Lake Huron. The aquifer sat beneath western Kansas like a hidden ocean. And the federal government had a plan to tap it. Center pivot irrigation. You’ve seen them. Those giant sprinkler systems that roll across a field on wheels, turning a quarter mile circle of dry prairie into a green paradise.
