It's a new day for the planet

It's a new day for the sun

To shine down on what we're doin'

It's a new day for love

*Neil Young

After driving through 3/4 of Nebraska we decided to stay overnight in a town called Ogallala. So spiritual sounding, I knew this place had indigenous roots. Ogallala is a Sioux Indian word meaning "to scatter one's self."

Here is your geography lesson for today:

Not far beneath the Earth’s surface is one of the largest natural underground Aquifers. The Ogallala Aquifer covers 174,000 square-miles beneath eight states. It supplies drinking water for 2 million  people—more than 80 percent of the people in the Great Plains—and is a critical source of irrigation for 13 million acres of land.

Imagine, if you will, allowing  a foreign company to transport 830 million barrels of tar sand crude across this Aquifer each day. If this pipeline were to spill or leak, it could potentially contaminate the primary water supply relied upon by the millions of people and countless species of wildlife as well as the agricultural industry that is the region’s economic backbone.  

Dave and I had the unique experience of attending a Neil Young/Willie Nelson concert in Nebraska last summer that brought to the stage Native American people who currently reside in Nebraska and Native people who were forcibly removed from their land in Nebraska during the Indian Removal Act. These native people along with the citizens of  Nebraska, ranchers and farmers spoke of the dangers of the proposed Canadian pipeline to the precious Ogallala Aquifer. Together these strangers formed The Cowboy and Indian Alliance. Two unlikely groups of people that have united together for this clean water cause.

For me, I will continue to support people whose best interests and intentions are rooted deeply in what is natural and necessary for basic human life. I savored the water I drank that day in Ogallala. It tasted good!

Statue in Boot Hill Cemetery in Nebraska

Where does your water come from?