Running Out

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An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartland, the Ogallala aquifer has sustained life on the Great Plains for millennia. However, less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has pushed much of it to the brink of irreparable damage. The impending depletion of the Ogallala and other global aquifers represents a critical planetary crisis. This work offers a personal exploration of aquifer depletion and its broader implications. Anthropologist Lucas Bessire returns to western Kansas, where his family has farmed for five generations, to understand the significance of this vital resource and its impending loss. His quest for water across the drying High Plains confronts the harsh realities of industrial agriculture, eroding democratic values, and surreal interpretations of an impending disaster. The narrative defies predictability, seeking to transcend the conventional frameworks often associated with environmental destruction. Instead, this journey into the depths of eradication reveals unexpected insights about inheriting troubled legacies and the responsibility to forge a more inclusive, sustainable future. As an urgent meditation on environmental change, it offers a profound reflection on family, complicity, loss, and the quest to find one's way back home.