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Oklahoma: Potential Effects of New Ethanol Plants

Map 1. Declining Water Table

Potential effect: Already scarce water supplies become scarcer

Currently, Oklahoma has no operating or planned ethanol plants within the state's areas of highest Ogallala depletion. However, nearby plants in Kansas and Texas will put additional pressure on this already strained region of the aquifer (see Map 1).

Map 2. Conservation Reserve Program: Land Retired from Use

Potential effect: Loss of critical habitat

Western Oklahoma was part of the center of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Increased demand for corn could create pressure to plow restored and native grasslands that are often highly erosive and also are critical habitat for at risk grassland species like the lesser prairie chicken and swift fox (see Maps 2 and 3).

Important Native Grasslands

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.