Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains (Hardcover)

Staff Reviews
A deep look into the complex problem of aquifer depletion in the Plains. A native of southwest Kansas, and an anthropologist by training, Bessire seeks to unravel why depletion continues despite many stakeholders actively working toward different outcomes. He puts depletion in its historical context finding to it be the latest in a series of depletions- colonization, genocide, over hunting. He also learns that despite many farmers seeking solutions, current economic structures reinforce the practice of depletion. Part memoir, he uses his grandmother’s research as a jumping off point; and despite a previously strained relationship, he leverages his father’s rights as a landowner to gain access to various water governing bodies and grows closer to him in the process. At 180 pages this is a short but powerful book, I highly recommend it.
— AmyDescription
Finalist for the National Book Award
An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartland
About the Author
Lucas Bessire is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma and the author of Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life.