Nebraska: Planned and active ethanol plants in Ogallala Aquifer
Report overview | State maps: Colorado | Kansas | Nebraska | New Mexico | Oklahoma | Texas
Map 1. Declining Water Table
Potential effect: Already scarce water supplies become scarcer
A 44 million gallon per year ethanol plant is currently under construction in Madrid, directly overlying an area of major Ogallala Aquifer depletion. In some nearby areas, the water table declined by more than a foot a year on average between 1980 and 1996. Water needs for corn-to-fuel processing could draw 176 million gallons per year from the aquifer. If the new ethanol plants lead to any increase in local irrigated corn production, the plants would have an even larger impact on water pumping demands in one of the most overexploited sections of the Ogallala Aquifer (see Map 1).
Map 2. Conservation Reserve Program: Land Retired from Use
Potential effect: Loss of critical habitat
Western Nebraska is home to some critical remnants of grassland habitat for a number of at-risk species, including the lesser prairie chicken and swift fox. Rising demand for corn may increase pressure to convert restored and native prairie tracts to crop production, threatening the habitat of these and other grassland species (see Maps 2 and 3).
Map 3. Important Native Grasslands of the Central Shortgrass Prairie
Sources
CRP data: Conservation Programs, Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Ethanol plant location data: Earth Policy Institute. 2006. Data files for distillery demand for grain to fuel cars vastly understated.
Native grasslands data: Neely, B., et al. 2006. Central Shortgrass Prairie Ecoregional Assessment and Partnership Initiative. The Nature Conservancy of Colorado and the Shortgrass Prairie Partnership.
Ogallala depletion data: Fischer, B. C., and V. L. McGuire. 1999. Digital data set of water-level changes in the High Plains aquifer in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, 1980 to 1996. Lincoln, NE: U.S. Geological Survey.
