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Today, the South Platte flows over this grav el bed, as do the other major rivers in <br />eastern Colorado, each along its own channel of alluvium. Among these rivers, which <br />include the Arkansas and Republi can, the South Platte’s aquife r is the larges t, containing <br />an estimated 25 million acre-feet of water. The river’s average annual surface flow, by <br />14 <br />contrast, is roughly 1.4 million acre-feet. In places, tongues of alluvium also underlie <br />dry tributaries that once coursed with water. The South Platte allu vial aquifer is, unlike <br />the vast Ogallala to the east, intimately conn ected to surface flows – water can easily seep <br />into the aquifer from the South Platte River, or vice versa dependi ng on the height of <br />underground water levels. While the Ogallala is confined by impermeable materials and <br />cannot be refilled in foreseeable human ge nerations, the South Platte’s aquifer is <br />renewable. Like a giant sponge beneath a leaky faucet, it can dry out or become saturated <br />15 <br />depending on surface conditions. <br />This water can also be extracted. The aquifer, an ancient, hidden water-bearing <br />formation created by epic natural forces, has been altered by people. Yet for many years, <br />its presence was virtually unknown. Above, the ri ver’s flow was intermittent – subject to <br />great flooding, but often disappearing into the sand during summer months: “more of a <br />16 <br />quicksand than a river,” recalled one early settler. This unassuming watercourse had <br />already witnessed one tremendous historical event. In 1858, a man named William Green <br />Bittinger, “Ground Water Management Vital to Comprehensive Development of River Basin Water <br />Resources,” Colorado Farm and Home Research 12, no. 4 (1962). <br />14 <br /> An acre-foot of water would cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot. The South Platte River’s annual <br />surface flow is cited in P. K. Bash and R.A. Young, The Role of Tributary Ground Water in Irrigated Crop <br />Production in the South Platte Basin: Results from a Survey (Fort Collins: Colorado Water Resources <br />Research Institute, 1994). <br />15 <br /> For historical accounts of groundwa ter use from the Ogallala aquifer in the Midwestern states, see Cunfer <br />and Opie. For an account of Ogalalla us e in Texas, see Donald E. Green, Land of the Underground Rain: <br />Irrigation on the Texas High Plains, 1910-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973). <br />16 <br /> Statement of Charles Huffsmith, 13. Box 26, Papers of Delph E. Carpenter and Family, Water Resources <br />Archive, Colorado State Un iversity (hereafter DEC). <br />8 <br />