JIM RICHARDSON

Water issues facing the American West from stories photographed for National Geographic Magazine. Including the Colorado River, Columbia River, Mississippi River and the Ogallala Aquifer.

Already the lights are going out in the heavens. The night sky, that glorious black richness where the Gods of old lived amid the sparkling stars and the wandering planets, is fading from our lives. Fading not into dimness, but awash in light, the unanticipated legacy of Edison's wonder, the light bulb. Barely a century on, the electric lighting has wiped out much the once-vast skyscape of our ancestors. Perhaps eighty percent of the world, or put another way, four out of five of the children born today, may never see the Milky Way again. If this loss is profound, it is also curable. Great swaths of this storied darkness can be reclaimed, by simple means, with huge savings of resources, and with far-reaching benefits for our climate as well as our heritage. These images are from The End of Night, published in National Geographic Magazine.

The Ogallala Aquifer is a great body of groundwater underlying much of eight states in the American Midwest. As the main source of water in an otherwise dry land it takes on huge economic and political importance. With heavy irrigation use beginning after WWII to water expanding grain production in the area water levels began to drop, a process that has only accelerated in recent decades despite periodic efforts to reform water policy and make the aquifer sustainable. With abundant grain came expanding cattle feedlots and huge been packing plants, transforming the economies of places like Dodge City, Kansas. With declining water levels the future of the region will eventually be at risk; in some places; dryland crops are already replacing irrigation because of the high cost of pumping water from deep wells. These images come from my coverage published in the March 1993 issue of National Geographic