HPWD shows county water level drop

High Plains Water District field staff recently completed the 2022 water level measurements in HPWD Underground Water Conservation District No. 1, which includes Castro County.

The average change observed in the Ogallala/Edwards-Trinity (High Plains) Aquifers is -0.63 feet from 2021 to 2022. Last year the average was -1.33 feet.

Locally in Castro County, the water level showed a drop of -1.86 feet from the 2021 measurement.

The team of field techni cians which includes Robert Triggs, Ray Eads, Lance Epperson, Keith Whitworth, Mark Hamilton, Vance Porter and Billy Barron, visited 1394 well sites during the project.

After completing the initial checks, approximately 135 wells were rechecked. These rechecks were the result of questionable readings, or other factors that did not allow them to obtain a publishable measurement.

Measurements are taken with a steel tape, electric line, or pressure transducer re quiring a lot of time, effort, and attention to detail.

The magnitude of this annual project is quite large.

For each well, the field technician inserts the tape into the well casing, then records the depth to water. The cumulative depth to water for 2022 is almost 300,000 feet, or 56 miles. This puts into perspective the amount of time that is spent using a hand reel during this program.

The average of all wells may provide a high-level overview of the yearly trend. However, HPWD encourages the use of localized data so people understand the variability of change at a property level analysis, and zoom closely to their area of interest, and use the data from three or four nearby observation wells to stay informed.

The publishable data for 2022 water level measurements will soon be available on the district's interactive web map at data.hpwd.org/map.