Every Farmer Took Free Water—15 Years Later, He Was the Only One Left Standing

Because Alvin had been rotating wheat with building organic matter, keeping the soil healthy, his ground hadn’t been stressed by irrigation and then abandoned. It had been steady all along, and his well, that 42-t hole he dug by hand while everyone laughed, was still pumping. Let me tell you about the morning. Everything changed. August of 1987, the hottest summer in 15 years. No rain since June. The dry land crops were hurting. Alvin’s included. But at least they were alive.

The irrigated crops that still had water were surviving. The ones that didn’t were dead. At 6:00 in the morning, Alvin was at his well filling a stock tank for his cattle when he saw a pickup truck coming up his drive, then another one behind it, then a third. The first truck was Gene Willard, the man whose pivot had gone dry 3 years earlier. He drilled deeper twice, and the second hole had come up empty in June. The second truck was Dale Heinen.

His well had been producing 300 gall a minute in 75. It was producing 40 in 87. The third truck was Lyall Gunderson, the JD dealer, the man who’d called Alvin a museum piece in 1974. Lyall had closed the dealership in ‘ 86. No one was buying equipment when the water was running out. He’d gone back to farming his own ground, put in a center pivot on his quarter section, and watched it go dry in two years. All three trucks had the same thing in the back.

Empty water containers. Alvin stood by his well with a tin cup in his hand and watched the three men get out of their trucks and walk toward him. Nobody said anything for a long time. Finally, Jean Willard spoke. Alvin, we need water for livestock. Our wells are dry. Alvin looked at the three men. He looked at the empty containers. He looked at his well, still producing, still steady, still pumping the same 8 gall a minute had pumped since 1972.

How many head between you? Alvin asked. About 160 total. That’s a lot of water. We know. We’ll pay whatever you want. Alvin shook his head. I don’t want your money. He looked at Lyall Gunderson. I seem to remember you saying I’d be bankrupt in 5 years and you’d be selling my land. Lyall looked at the ground. His face was red. And it wasn’t from the sun. That was a stupid thing to say. Lyall said quietly. I’m sorry.

Alvin let the silence sit for a moment. Then he nodded. Bring your tanks. I’ll fill what I can, but you’re going to have to take turns. This well gives 8 gall a minute, not 800. Patience is part of the deal. He filled their tanks that morning. He filled them the next day and the day after that. For the rest of that summer, Alvin Ducker’s 42 ft handdug well kept 160 head of cattle alive on three farms that had spent 15 years laughing at the man who dug it.

Now, let me tell you about the year that followed. because the water wasn’t the only thing Alvin shared. In the fall of 87, after the heat broke and a few inches of rain finally came, the county extension agent, a young man named Paul Haske, drove out to Alvin’s farm. He’d heard the stories. He wanted to see the well. Alvin showed him, showed him the fieldstone lining, the shallow aquifer, the windmill pump, the 8 gall a minute that had never fluctuated.

Mr. Ducker Paul said, “Do you realize you’re the only operational private water source in the northwest quarter of the county? Every Ogalala well within 6 mi of here is either dry or declining.” I know your well taps a completely different water source. A perched table fed by surface infiltration. It’s sustainable because it recharges annually. I know that, too. Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you share this with the extension service or the water district? Or I tried, Alvin said.

In 72, I left the geological survey report at the co-op. Nobody read it. In 78, I told Gene Willard his well was pulling too much. He told me to mind my own business. In ‘ 82, I went to the water district meeting and asked them to look at the decline numbers. They said the aquafer would last another 50 years. He paused. You can’t help people who think they don’t have a problem. You can only be ready when they figure it out.

Well, Paul Hask sat in Alvin’s kitchen that afternoon and listened to a 66-year-old dryland farmer explain the hydrogeeology of western Kansas in terms that no university professor had ever used. Alvin explained it like this. The Ogalala is like a savings account your greatgrandfather left you. It took 10,000 years to fill. You can spend it fast or slow, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. Nobody alive today will see it refill. A shallow well is like a paycheck. It’s smaller, but it comes back every year.

You can live on a paycheck if you’re careful. You can’t live on a savings account forever if you’re spending more than it earns. Paul asked if he could write that down. Alvin said he could do whatever he wanted with it. The extension agent published a report the following spring. The title was perched water tables as supplemental water sources in western Kansas. It cited Alvin Ducker’s well as the primary case study. The report recommended that farmers in declining aquafer areas explore shallow well development as a backup water source for livestock and domestic use.

The report was read by exactly 12 people in Sheridan County. But word of mouth is more powerful than reports. The story of Alvin’s well, the handdug well that everyone laughed at. The well that was still running when the Ogalala went dry, spread across western Kansas, the way stories always spread in farm country. Slowly at first, then faster, then everywhere. By 1990, four other farmers in Sheridan County had dug or drilled shallow wells targeting perched water tables. None of them produced as much as Alvin’s.

His location was unusually good. But all of them produced something. Enough for livestock, enough for a household, enough to survive while the Ogalala kept dropping. Alvin never charged anyone for the water. He never said, “I told you so.” Except once to Lyall Gunderson, and even then it was gentle. What he did say to anyone who would listen, was this. Don’t depend on what you can’t control. The government didn’t give you free water. They gave you a loan against an aquifer that can’t pay it back.

When the bill comes due, and it always comes due, the government won’t be here. You will. Let me tell you about the end. Because every story needs one. Alvin Ducker died in 1994 at the age of 83. He died the way he’d lived, quietly on his own land, without owing anything to anyone. He’d farmed 320 acres of dryland wheat for 61 years. He’d never installed a center pivot. He’d never borrowed money for equipment. He’d never pumped a gallon from the Ogalala.

His well was still producing 8 gallons a minute on the day he died. His son Wayne took over the farm. Wayne was 55 years old, had worked alongside his father his entire life, and had the same disposition, quiet, watchful, patient. Wayne kept farming dry land. He kept the well-maintained. He kept filling his neighbors stock tanks when they needed it. By the year 2000, the Ogalala aquifer under Sheridan County had declined by over 80 ft from its 1972 level.

30% of the wells drilled during the irrigation boom were either dry or producing less than a quarter of their original capacity. Several farms had been abandoned. The green circles were disappearing from the landscape, replaced by brown earth and idle pivot structures standing like skeletons in empty fields. At the county fair in 2001, the extension service put up a display about water conservation. One panel showed the aquafer decline graph, a line dropping like a cliff from 1972 to the present.

Another panel showed photographs of abandoned center pivots. And in the center of the display, framed and mounted, was a photograph of Alvin Ducker standing beside his hand dug well in 1973. He was 62 years old. In the picture, Lena’s wire holding a tin cup of water. The caption read, “Alvin Ducker, Sheridan County, dug this well by hand in 1972 while his neighbors installed center pivot irrigation. His well is still producing today. The Ogalala beneath his neighbors farms has dropped 80 ft.

Wayne Ducker stood at the back of the fair tent and read the caption. Read the caption. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. His father had said it all in 1972 in a parking lot to a government man with a briefcase full of promises. Free water doesn’t exist. The pumps have been running for 50 years now. The Ogalala is still dropping. The government is still promising solutions. And somewhere in Sheridan County, Kansas, a handdug well lined with field stone 42 feet deep, built with a shovel and a pickaxe and 4 months of patience, is still pumping 8 gall a minute.

The same 8 gallons it’s been pumping since 1972. The man who dug it is gone. The neighbors who laughed are mostly gone. The center pivots that were going to change everything are rusting in empty fields, but the water is still there, right where Alvin said it would be. Sometimes the man who digs by hand sees deeper than the man who drills by machine. Sometimes the cheapest solution is the one that lasts, and sometimes free is the most expensive word in the English language.

Alvin Ducker knew that. He knew it at 61. Standing in a parking lot doing math that nobody else wanted to do. 18 in out. Half an inch back. He went home and dug a hole.