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Hydrology 101: What the Judge Wouldn’t Let You Hear

CLICK HERE—->Hydrology 101: What the Judge Wouldn’t Let You Hear

This is a dual-axis hydrograph and water-use chart covering a 51-year period (1971 to 2022) for the Wahpeton Buried Valley (WBV) Aquifer. It compares annual groundwater extraction with actual water-level elevation measured at an observation well. When heavy pumping took off in the 1970s and 1980s, the water table plummeted roughly 40 feet and stayed stuck at that depressed level for nearly two decades while annual withdrawals averaged over 1,840 acre-feet. Water levels finally started inching back up only after total pumping dropped below 1,800 acre-feet around 2010, yet the aquifer still sits more than 30 feet below where it started. That 50-year record proves that pulling more than 1,800 to 2,000 acre-feet a year drains the underground supply faster than rain and snow can ever refill it.
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