Article 5 of 8: The Buffalo Commons Series
Drive northeast from Denver on US Highway 34 toward Wray in Yuma County, and increasingly, former cropland is reverting to native grass—planted intentionally through federal conservation programs that pay farmers to remove land from agriculture entirely. The center-pivot irrigation systems have been removed. What you can’t see are the wells sealed beneath the surface, permanently capped by government order.
Beneath lies the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground water reserve in North America. For seventy years, it nourished an agricultural miracle. But that miracle was built on borrowed time. The aquifer is running dry, and with it, the economic foundation of rural communities across eight states is crumbling.
The Ancient Reserve
The Ogallala Aquifer spans 174,000 square miles beneath eight states. The aquifer’s natural recharge rate averages just 0.15 to 0.24 inches per year. Modern irrigation wells pump 10 to 20 inches or more annually. We’re extracting water 40 to 100 times faster than nature can replace it. Scientists estimate recovery would take hundreds to thousands of years.
After World War II, center-pivot irrigation and powerful pumps made it economically feasible to tap the Ogallala’s reserves. The Great Plains boomed. But it was all built on mining a non-renewable resource. By the 1970s and 1980s, water levels were already dropping significantly.
Yuma County: Ground Zero
The Republican River Compact, a 1943 interstate agreement, requires Colorado to allow certain water flows to reach Kansas and Nebraska. For years, Colorado farmers overpumped groundwater. Kansas sued. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled against Colorado.
Colorado’s solution? Permanently shut down irrigation wells—25,000 acres by 2029. Already, 17,000 acres have been retired, with $30 million in state and federal funds compensating farmers. The compensation structure reveals something significant.
Under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), farmers receive up to $4,250 per acre over five years to continue dryland farming without irrigation. Under the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), farmers receive up to $5,250 per acre over 15 years—but must stop all agricultural activity and plant native grass.
The higher-paying CREP option converts irrigated cropland directly into prairie. The federal government pays farmers premium rates to create exactly what the Buffalo Commons envisioned: agricultural land returned to native grass.
Yuma County bears the brunt. Bonny Reservoir was drained in 2012 to help Colorado meet compact obligations. Today it’s a dry basin choked with shrubs and dying cottonwoods. The economic devastation ripples outward. When irrigated land converts to dryland farming, farm cooperatives lose 90% of their business. Property tax revenues drop dramatically. Rural communities find themselves in a death spiral.
Meanwhile, the Colorado State Land Board continues pumping its own wells in the Republican River Basin—extracting 11,500 acre-feet annually while forcing private farmers to permanently shut down theirs.
Kansas and Nebraska: Similar Fates
Wallace County in far western Kansas has lost roughly 80% of its Ogallala water. Farmer Travis Leonard watched his operation shrink from 16 irrigation wells to just three. “We won’t have any irrigation wells left in a decade or two,” he said. Hydrologists project that “farms and towns could vanish within a generation or two.”
In 2023, the Kansas legislature ordered water use cuts of one-third to “stabilize” the aquifer. But stabilization doesn’t mean recovery—it means slowing the decline. As wells fail, land values collapse. Young farmers can’t justify investing in operations with limited water. Banks won’t lend for expensive irrigation equipment when the aquifer’s lifespan is measured in years.
Nebraska capped water usage at 20 inches per year since the late 1970s, proudly claiming 60% less aquifer decline than projected. But it’s still declining. Water rights themselves have become commodities traded separate from land, with large operations consolidating rights at the expense of distributed family farms.
The Federal Trap
Federal crop subsidies incentivize growing water-intensive crops like corn and alfalfa. These subsidies often make the difference between profit and loss. But subsidies require growing specific crops that demand substantial water. It’s a vicious cycle. Farmers need subsidies to survive economically. Subsidies require growing certain crops. Those crops demand water.
The Buffalo Commons Prophecy
In 1987, Frank and Deborah Popper proposed that large portions of the Great Plains should be returned to native prairie—a “Buffalo Commons.” They were burned in effigy, condemned as out-of-touch academics attacking rural America.
But the Poppers weren’t advocating for collapse. They were predicting it. They looked at demographic trends showing rural depopulation, economic data revealing declining farm profitability, and environmental pressures including aquifer depletion. They concluded the agricultural model was unsustainable.
Their federal buyback program never happened. But everything else they predicted is unfolding exactly as they described. Depopulation continues. The water crisis has worsened. What’s different now is the mechanism. In 2025, market forces and conservation organizations are achieving similar results without federal mandate.
Economic pressures force farmers out. Well restrictions and aquifer depletion make farming impossible. Land values crater. Conservation groups buy distressed land. The Buffalo Commons is being built incrementally, through individual transactions rather than comprehensive policy.
The Geographic Convergence
Map the areas of worst Ogallala depletion and they perfectly overlap with Buffalo Commons target zones. The Republican River Basin shows up consistently in conservation priorities. Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s State Wildlife Action Plan identifies this shortgrass prairie region as crucial for wildlife connectivity. The Southern Plains Land Trust operates primarily in this region.
The federal CREP program is already converting thousands of acres to native grass. When those 15-year contracts expire, the land has been out of intensive agriculture for over a decade, planted in native grass, and potentially available for acquisition by conservation organizations.
The environmental crisis creates the conditions—economic collapse, distressed land sales, farmer exodus. But federal conservation programs are actively facilitating the conversion to native grass. And conservation organizations are positioned to acquire this land once it’s already been transitioned away from agriculture, often at lower prices than productive irrigated farmland would command.
The Inevitable Commons
The Ogallala crisis has no clear villains. Farmers responded rationally to economic incentives. Federal policymakers incentivized irrigation to boost agricultural production. Everyone acted according to their interests and knowledge at the time. The result is catastrophic anyway.
Decades of unsustainable extraction have created a situation where large portions of the Great Plains can no longer support irrigated agriculture. Conservation measures can slow depletion but not reverse it.
Into this crisis step conservation organizations with money, mission, and patience. They can purchase distressed farmland at depressed prices. As economic forces push farmers out, conservation groups are ready to acquire the land.
The Buffalo Commons is no longer a provocative academic proposal. It’s becoming reality through federal conservation programs that pay farmers to convert cropland to native grass. The Ogallala Aquifer is depleting. Wells are shutting down. Farmers face a choice: accept lower payments to continue struggling with dryland farming, or accept higher payments to plant native grass and stop farming entirely. Thousands are choosing the latter.
When those 15-year CREP contracts expire, the land has been out of intensive agriculture for over a decade, planted in native grass. Conservation organizations can then acquire it—already converted, already restored, often at prices lower than productive irrigated farmland would command.
When farmers are forced out by circumstances they didn’t create and can’t control, when federal programs pay them to plant native grass instead of crops, when conservation organizations can then acquire this already-converted land at depressed prices—is this environmental necessity or the implementation of a controversial vision that couldn’t be achieved through democratic debate?
The answer may be both. The water crisis is real and making the Buffalo Commons inevitable. But federal conservation programs are actively facilitating the conversion, and conservation organizations are positioned to acquire the results. The only question is whether we’re witnessing a managed environmental transition serving the public good, or a publicly-funded land conversion program that ultimately serves the acquisition interests of conservation groups.
For Yuma County farmers watching their wells being sealed, for western Kansas families seeing their irrigation operations become impossible, for southwestern Nebraska communities adapting to ever-tightening water restrictions—the distinction may not matter. Their way of life is ending either way.
The Poppers were right. Not because they were brilliant predictors, but because they recognized the mathematical inevitability of depleting a non-renewable resource faster than it can recharge. The Great Plains are returning to prairie, well by well, farm by farm, town by town.
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