Evidently there's something called a brazier grill (?) that out-of-Texas DQ's use that our's don't or vice versa. My brother lives in Denver and complains about that all the time.

NPH- said:

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TequilaMockingbird said:

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Meanwhile Midland and Odessa (Midland and Ector County) have grown by 70K people. Make it stop!

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Not enough money in the world to make me live there….

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It's a great place to be if you are in Oil and Gas and like doing what you do. Tons of ideas and innovation happen in that place. Maybe you don't stay in Midland for a lifetime, but it's a great place to go to get experience, work hard, learn how things get done, and make connections.

rwtxag83 said:

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NPH- said:

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TequilaMockingbird said:

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Meanwhile Midland and Odessa (Midland and Ector County) have grown by 70K people. Make it stop!

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Not enough money in the world to make me live there….

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It's a great place to be if you are in Oil and Gas and like doing what you do. Tons of ideas and innovation happen in that place. Maybe you don't stay in Midland for a lifetime, but it's a great place to go to get experience, work hard, learn how things get done, and make connections.

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Just read a story in Guideposts magazine, about a woman who did not want to move to Midland...and did not want to leave.

https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/inspiring-stories/stories-of-hope/god-opened-her-eyes-to-the-blessings-of-living-in-a-texas-oil-town

Quote:

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"I've always heard that people cry when they move to Midland and cry when they move away," my sister-in-law Eileen said.

She was trying to make me feel better. It didn't work.

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Worth a read.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Eastern New Mexico is lot like the Western Texas Panhandle.

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One of the reasons of course is we snagged some of New Mexico when it became a state. Originally the border was to line up with the 103rd meridian at the corner of Oklahoma. But the surveyor started out and stopped part way. Later he came back, starting from Dalhart but he was off by 2.3 miles when he resumed going south. He never had a chance to correct the mistake because Indians scared him away before he could finish so he ball parked his findings.

That became XIT land and they realized they were going to lose something like 1000 square miles of land if the New Mexico border went in where it was supposed to. After intense lobbying the state line was drawn favoring Texas. Partly because President Taft went to college with one of the XIT investors and they were buds.

Anyway on maps you'll notice the state line is slightly off from Oklahoma's western corner. That's why.

Captain Pablo said:

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Also, I have not reviewed this thread

Have we discussed the greatness of Allsups burritos?

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Breakfast of Champions and late night food refuge for hundreds of square miles.

Seems like somebody on here posted an obit a few years ago of an Aggie that either started/owned, or managed Allsups.

techno-ag said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Eastern New Mexico is lot like the Western Texas Panhandle.

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One of the reasons of course is we snagged some of New Mexico when it became a state. Originally the border was to line up with the 103rd meridian at the corner of Oklahoma. But the surveyor started out and stopped part way. Later he came back, starting from Dalhart but he was off by 2.3 miles when he resumed going south. He never had a chance to correct the mistake because Indians scared him away before he could finish so he ball parked his findings.

That became XIT land and they realized they were going to lose something like 1000 square miles of land if the New Mexico border went in where it was supposed to. After intense lobbying the state line was drawn favoring Texas. Partly because President Taft went to college with one of the XIT investors and they were buds.

Anyway on maps you'll notice the state line is slightly off from Oklahoma's western corner. That's why.

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Can we give them back El Paso in exchange? It's in the Mtn time zone anyway.

CanyonAg77 said:

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rwtxag83 said:

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NPH- said:

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TequilaMockingbird said:

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Meanwhile Midland and Odessa (Midland and Ector County) have grown by 70K people. Make it stop!

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Not enough money in the world to make me live there….

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It's a great place to be if you are in Oil and Gas and like doing what you do. Tons of ideas and innovation happen in that place. Maybe you don't stay in Midland for a lifetime, but it's a great place to go to get experience, work hard, learn how things get done, and make connections.

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Just read a story in Guideposts magazine, about a woman who did not want to move to Midland...and did not want to leave.

https://www.guideposts.org/inspiration/inspiring-stories/stories-of-hope/god-opened-her-eyes-to-the-blessings-of-living-in-a-texas-oil-town

Quote:

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"I've always heard that people cry when they move to Midland and cry when they move away," my sister-in-law Eileen said.

She was trying to make me feel better. It didn't work.

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Worth a read.

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The people out there are just great. It's like everybody is kinda stuck together in the wilderness, so you may as well be nice to each other and make the best of it.

My daughter (Petroleum Engineering Class of '24) is out there right now in the last week of her internship with a major Oil and Gas company, and she just ate it up. Loved every minute of it, and hopes she gets an invite/offer to come back. She came home from College Station for Spring break and told the wife and me: 'Right now, I am in the best place I could be, I love learning what I do every day, I get it from the brightest and most dedicated people anywhere, and there is no place on the planet that I would rather be.' We went out to Midland a few weeks ago to visit her. Saw the Petroleum Museum, see where she works and drive around town just to see the place. There's a few times in your life as a parent when you are truly grateful for the blessing of having wonderful kids, and seeing them do well. That was surely one of those moments.

I didn't read all 6 pages, but if the small town populations are dwindling, how come schools like Stratford, Canadian, Spearman, West Texas High are so dominant at sports?

HtownAg92 said:

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I didn't read all 6 pages, but if the small town populations are dwindling, how come schools like Stratford, Canadian, Spearman, West Texas High are so dominant at sports?

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Well it's not like they are competing in 6A

They are competing with other schools of similar enrollment

If enrollment drops, then they'll drop in classification and still compete with schools of similar enrollment

Yeah, but usually when the West Texas and Panhandle farm boys head south and east, they start getting out-athleted. Stratford and especially Canadian have managed to overcome.

HtownAg92 said:

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Yeah, but usually when the West Texas and Panhandle farm boys head south and east, they start getting out-athleted. Stratford and especially Canadian have managed to overcome.

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Ok but your inquiry was about declining population and enrollment, not about the athletic prowess of the student body

Perhaps there are good athletes in those programs who are also coached well, and compete favorably against similar sized schools

CanyonAg77 said:

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Thaddeus73 said:

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Is the Ogallala aquifer holding up OK?

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No.



https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ogallala-aquifer/#:~:text=Today%20the%20Ogallala%20Aquifer%20is,keep%20up%20with%20human%20demands.

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I've seen some of the chronological maps of the Ogallala at Tech. Those maps paint a bleak picture of water for the Panhandle. Grapes of Wrath comes to mind.

We really need to start building pipelines to send fresh water to the Panhandle or those people are screwed.

I also believe we should start force pumping caught rain water in the recharge zone and try to mitigate the loss some.

But, the politicians won't allocate money until there is a crisis. Forethought and planning lead to solutions, something politicians don't want.

CDUB98 said:

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We really need to start building pipelines to send fresh water to the Panhandle or those people are screwed.

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Elevation would be a problem. Over 3000 ft in most of the Panhandle, even though it appears to be flat.

I realize that. I grew up there.

It is doable. May need multiple pumping stations, but it can be done.

It's more than appearance…

Very gradual slope, but technically not flat.

But yeah, semantics.

Not level, but pretty flat, no? Are we splitting hairs yet?

Does a pancake hafta be horizontal to be "flat"?

Did you not see the winky face? Did you not see the word "semantics"?

Rest, Ag...

CDUB98 said:

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We really need to start building pipelines to send fresh water to the Panhandle or those people are screwed.

I also believe we should start force pumping caught rain water in the recharge zone and try to mitigate the loss some.

But, the politicians won't allocate money until there is a crisis. Forethought and planning lead to solutions, something politicians don't want.

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Your heart is in the right place, but I don't think there's enough fresh water, money, or energy available to do any of the above. It's not political, it's physics and economics.

How big a pipeline would it take to move even a small % of the needed water? Desalination of sea water is the only reasonable source, so we're talking a 600-700 mile pipeline with a total lift of nearly 4000 feet.

As far as recharge, the Ogallala is some of the cleanest, best tasting underground water there is. Do you really want to start pumping runoff back into the aquifer?

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Do you really want to start pumping runoff back into the aquifer.

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Surface water is runoff. And, many/most aquifers are re-charged by runoff. Nature has @ filter system, but man has made them too. It's quite practical.

I worked with a researcher who had done recharge studies in the 1970s. They dug pits to see if they could recharge faster. Didn't really work.

To get meaningful artificial recharge would require filtering millions and millions of gallons a day. Just not practical or affordable

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Over 3000 ft in most of the Panhandle, even though it appears to be flat.

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I remember that "gradual slope" quite well. It often made forecasting morning stratus at Cannon AFB (I was there twice) very challenging. It's called "upslope fog/stratus":

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Upslope fog is formed when air flows upwards over rising terrain and is adiabatically cooled to its saturation temperature. Upslope fog is a type of hill fog. When viewed from below it will be seen as Stratus. As one ascends into the cloud, the visibility will appear as fog.

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Light winds from the southeast would flow over that "gradual slope" and the upslope fog/stratus would form. The question at the Cannon weather station was always "will it get here, or peter out between here and Lubbock". Of course, if it DID get all the way to Cannon, it would definitely impact the local flying, at least until mid-morning.

I remember forecasting it to get to Cannon, and then it didn't. Just another busted forecast. BUT - if we DIDN'T forecast it to reach Cannon and it did, that was a different matter. We could expect an unannounced visit to our wx station from the Wing Commander or Director of Operations, sometimes both. Good times.

agent-maroon said:

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Very gradual slope, but technically not flat.

But yeah, semantics.

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In cycling, we call that a false flat, and we hate them!

I am not advocating artificial recharge. Just pointing out that it occurs naturally all over the world.

And, I think San Antonio/Bexar County Water officials experimented with recharging the Carrizo Aquifer in the past, but I could be misremembering.

BoerneGator said:

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I am not advocating artificial recharge. Just pointing out that it occurs naturally all over the world.

And, I think San Antonio/Bexar County Water officials experimented with recharging the Carrizo Aquifer in the past, but I could be misremembering.

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Are you thinking of Aquifer Storage and Recovery?

SAWS does it. New Braunfels is close to implementing if they have not already. It isn't really recharge as much as it is attenuating the peak withdrawals from the aquifer and storing it somewhere else for use during droughts. It is kind of like strategic oil reserves for water.

https://www.edwardsaquifer.net/asr.html

Aaaaahh, memory like an elephant! It's an ongoing project with San Antonio Water Systems (SAWS) and the Edwards Underground Water District called H2Oaks where they inject "excess" water in "wet years" into the Carrizo where it exists in a "water bubble" until it can be extracted in dry years and after treatment, distributed to its customers.

San Antonio has been moving water around for years, and it works! See here.

BoerneGator said:

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I am not advocating artificial recharge. Just pointing out that it occurs naturally all over the world.

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I guess I was stuck on the Ogallala on the Texas High Plains...where natural recharge is very, very slight, and artificial recharge is not really feasible.

BoerneGator said:

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I am not advocating artificial recharge. Just pointing out that it occurs naturally all over the world.

And, I think San Antonio/Bexar County Water officials experimented with recharging the Carrizo Aquifer in the past, but I could be misremembering.

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Upon shaking a few cobwebs loose, SAWS and COSA have purchased land and/or conservation easements over the Edwards recharge over the years, most related to water quality. However I think a few of them included sinkholes or other recharge features where they diverted natural runoff to help improve quantity. My recollection is most of those had limited effectiveness on recharge because they were so small compared to the recharge zone, and rainfall in the Hill Country is so spotty.

Understood. And I'm mindful of the nearby Edwards, which is both massive (it's capacity exceeds the surface water storage capacity in ALL of Texas- think about that!), and capable of relatively quick recharge from runoff from the expansive Hill Country. It's an amazing system only God could design that provides a reliable abundance of fresh water on an ongoing basis. But, it does require reasonable usage habits that get tested regularly.

Even now, amidst severe drought, the Edwards still contains more untapped water than (perhaps) anywhere else in the entire world! Most of it remains the hostage of the Environmentalists and idiot Federal Judges, but that reality must change eventually, because San Antonio will continue to grow. That much is certain.

Yeah, I was referring to the same project you posted earlier. The one to the south of Bexar county injecting "excess" Edwards water into the Carrizo. It appears to be both practical and efficient. Perhaps an expert or two will weigh in.

CanyonAg77, Spider69:

You probably knew my father-in-law , Jack Musick, who worked at Bushland Research from '62 to around mid-90's. After he retired, he would still go up there to do volunteer research. He loved his work there.

Did not work with him directly, but I had a few conversations with him. Very nice guy. I was a lowly technician, spider69 a researcher, so Jack was more in his peer group, and he would have known him better, Plus, I was only there a few years, spider69 had a career there.

I think he may have been the researcher, who legend says, often failed to cash his payroll checks. In a time before direct deposit, he would toss the checks in his desk and forget about them. Payroll guys would have to come by and remind him to cash them. I don't think he was absent minded, I think he just had simple needs.

Apologies if I'm confusing him with someone else. It had been 40 years since I worked at Bushland.

I distinctly remember working late once, and he was also working late. This was in the early 1980s. I visited with him about the TV crew that had come to talk to him. They were asking him about global cooling. He told them maybe it would get cancelled out by the newest theory, global warming.

I always think of that when leftists try to pretend they never said there would be global cooling.

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I always think of that when leftists try to pretend they never said there would be global cooling.

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I got my MS in Meteorology at A&M in Dec 76 and started work at the AF Climatology Center in Jan 77. U of Wisconsin was trumpeting the "coming Ice Age" at the time. My boss was a Lt Col with a PHD from Wisconsin. His dissertatiion was about the "coming Ice Age" and he went to Geneva a couple of times to present his research at World Meteorological Oganization conferences.

I also accompanied my boss on several trips to U of Wisconsin for climate change conferences and met the Meteorology professors who were pushing the ice age theories. My MS classes and the A&M Meteorology professors I studied under absolutely DID NOT believe in man made climate change, so I never got the bug. I was damned glad I didn't go to Wisconsin for my grad degree.