Running Out by Lucas Bessire

Author:Lucas Bessire [Bessire, Lucas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

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To learn more, we decided to visit one county representative on a GMD board. We knocked on the door of a well-appointed farmhouse. A handsome man greeted us politely. On our way into the house, he said softly there was no need for introductions. He had already heard about us and about the book I was writing. He knew where we stood.

We sat around the shiny table as the representative, in a low calm voice, laid out reasons for optimism. Southwest Kansas farmers, he told us, are the best people in the world and we are already on the road to sustainability. There was no need for restrictions. He was opposed to reductions and to the state’s definition of conservation. He was in favor of what he called real conservation based on actual situations. He told us not to believe what we heard and suggested that some proconservation farmers, who he listed by name, were out for their own selfish gain at the expense of their neighbors.

According to the representative, the state needed to reward people for the real conservation they were already doing on their own. Regulating water would just damage the economy and hurt young farmers. He invoked a stream of numbers and figures about property values and tax revenue and decline rates. He did not mention they referred to different scales and could be interpreted as evidence against his argument.

You know there are other numbers that say the exact opposite, I ventured.

I know, he replied, a slight smile creasing his even features. All I do is talk about water. I have a degree. And I have practical experience, he said, invoking the common Plains rebuttal that real world experience counts more than formal expertise.

I know about conservation from watching the creek over there, he continued. We had a two-inch rain and it all pooled up in my terraces. It used to run into the creek, but now it gets sucked up by the CRP grass.10 Irrigation is not to blame, he said.

I could not tell if it was meant to be a joke. But the representative seemed serious. He urged us not to listen to any naysayers and continued with a series of punchlines. We are blessed with good saturated thickness. There are hundreds of years of water left. There are no de-watering incidents really. In fact, he concluded with a grin, we may just be too good at conservation.

Well, I said. Come on now.

My father looked over and stirred before I got myself into trouble. Thanks for your time, he said. We gotta get back and check on those calves.

As we drove away from the farmstead, I tried to comprehend what I saw as shortsightedness and bland falsehoods that aimed to break perceptions of truth and causality. If that was the attitude of those charged with stewardship of the life-giving waters, the forecast was bleak. I watched the heat waves dance. Along the very edge of the horizon appeared an oval of blue. It looked like a pool of water or distant lake.

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