Wheeler County Depends on the Ogallala Aquifer for Water

Wheeler County water is not one simple bucket. TWDB's January 2024 county planning sheet puts the Ogallala Aquifer in the supply mix for County-Other systems, irrigation, livestock, mining, Shamrock Municipal Water System, and Wheeler's municipal system. The Blaine Aquifer and other sources show up too.

The broad Ogallala trend is the caution. TWDB describes the aquifer as sand, gravel, clay, and silt under much of the High Plains. Freshwater saturated thickness averages 95 feet. About 95 percent of groundwater pumped from it goes to irrigation, and withdrawals exceed recharge in much of the aquifer.

For a rural place with a well, the question is bigger than whether water comes out today. Ask which aquifer the well reaches, how much depth is left, and whether the local trend is moving the wrong way.