Rank: Elder Joined: 10/9/2008 Posts: 5,389
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Kenya should move fast and exploit the aquifer to transform Turkana into the country's bread basket. Just like the US used the Ogallala aquifer (RINK)to turn the arid and semi arid great plains into the most productive US agricultural land. If Americans could do it a century ago, we surely can do it now. Quote:The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast, shallow water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it underlies an area of approximately 174,000 mi² (450,000 km²) in portions of eight states: (South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas).
About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies the aquifer, which yields about 30 percent of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. The regions overlying the Ogallala aquifer are some of the most productive regions in the United States for ranching livestock, and growing corn, wheat, and soybeans. Early settlers of the semiarid High Plains were plagued by crop failures due to cycles of drought, and it was only after World War II when center pivot irrigation became available, that the land mass of the High Plains aquifer system was transformed into one of the most agriculturally productive regions in the world.
The aquifer system supplies drinking water to 82 percent of the 2.3 million people (1990 census) who live within the boundaries of the High Plains study area. 
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