Many ranchers in the arid Southwest rely on wells for water, tapping deep into aquifers below the ground.  Expanding urban centers pull water from the Colorado River as well as their own aquifers, but even this water is not enough to sustain the rapidly growing population of these cities in the desert.  While Las Vegas and Phoenix grow exponentially, the ranchlands around them are often tapped for their underground aquifers leaving less water to sustain an agricultural future on this land.  The argument made for tapping the ranchland water is economic, while reasons why the soil of grasslands, however arid, should be sustained by minimal grazing are overlooked.

In the mid-eighties, growing cities like Scottsdale, Arizona started buying ranches just to have the rights to that piece of land's aquifer.  They called it water ranching.  Water ranching was outlawed in Arizona in the early ‘90s after enough protest from ranchers and small communities who didn't want to see their water supplies completely depleted.  In Nevada, however, Las Vegas has recently been in the process of obtaining water rights to aquifers below ranches in the Northern part of the state.  Although it seems like there is enough to go around, no one really knows how much water is in the aquifers.  If they disappear, the land could turn into a dust bowl.  Droughts in the already dry Southwest have been persistent in the last fifteen years, lessening the precipitation going back into the land to stabilize plants and provide water to wildlife, not to mention the growing cities, irrigated fields, and livestock.

When there is a drought, fewer cattle can be allotted to a section of land (private or public), making it even more difficult to economically sustain ranching in those areas.  When ranching is no longer economically sustainable, the land will be sold into development.  Condos and sprawling ranchettes use much more water than grazing herbivores.  If this trend continues, the remains of ranching will prove to be one of the most sustainable forms of land use in the Southwest.  Cows, in a well-managed rotational grazing program, can benefit and improve the land, recycling plants and water back into the dusty soil and creating strong roots that will stabilize it. Holistic range management is a way to use the given water resources of the Southwest properly and mimic the natural habitation of the land.   

How do you think we should address water use in the Southwest?  Do you live there or have any stories to share with us?  

Above photo:  Grand Canon, Colorado River by William Bell, 1871-1873