If you live near Ulysses, Kansas, you may want to start taking shorter showers. Ulysses, which gets its water from the Ogallala aquifer, could have only two and a half decades of water supply left if things continue along at the status quo. The Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground reservoir that supplies water to eight Western and Plains states, is overtaxed and in danger of drying up in some places – including the Corn Belt region where Ulysses sits.

According to an AP story, the aquifer is doing just fine in some places, such as near the Platte River in Nebraska, where the river and its streams replenish the underground water. But in other areas, the aquifer – which contains enough water, says the AP, to cover the whole country with one and a half feet of it – is being depleted at rates far faster than it’s being replenished. Near Ulysses, the water level has declined by 25 feet in the past ten years.

The aquifer spans 225,000 square miles across the Great Plains. Droughts in the region have led to increasing amounts of water being taken from the aquifer to water crops. Many states, agencies, and organizations are studying the water supply issue.

[via ENN]

Image credit: Iowa State University