Latest / Conservation Stories / Rehydrating the High Plains: Small Structures, Big Water Hope

Transcript

Rehydrating the High Plains: Small Structures, Big Water Hope · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:09
  Speaker B: Sims here again. And welcome back to another episode of Conservation Stories. Conservation Stories is a podcast, as you know, brought to you by the Sand Hill Area Research Association. And we are excited today because we have a great partner from the Amarillo Canyon area, Will Masters with us. And we will is doing some really cool rehydration projects. And I would explain that what to you what that is, but I really don't know. That's why we have Will here. Will, tell us a little bit about your background.
• 0:41
  Speaker A: Cool. Yeah. So I'm Will Masters. I'm out of Amarillo, and I'm. I'm an attorney and I practice for, shoot, very nearly 15 years now. I am not. I don't. We have like, our. Our judicial and governance systems have huge problems and I don't really like to practice law. A number of years ago I was talking with some students at WT about like, land use issues, environmental issues, and then also some like, market kind of based approaches to dealing with those. And times were different. It was like 2022. And the students were really excited. They ended up like, some of our team put together like, an NFT project called Baker nft. And we started a nonprofit entity called Oglala Life Conservation, Inc. And they raised like, yeah, a quarter of a million dollars nearly in just like a month. It was wild. It was like really very, like, kind of weird, optimistic time in, like, crypto, you know, we all thought we were getting rich. Yeah, yeah, this, this was. And we did, you know, but there. And there were some, like, really interesting. This was also, like, whenever carbon credit agreements were starting to handle. And so, like, I had an opportunity to review some, like, carbon credit generation agreements with, like, ranchers or farmers. And so there's like, this money to do things differently, you know, this opportunity. But the contracts were very poorly suited to our, like, local context. And we thought crypto, like, presented some opportunities. And sure enough, it did, but not, not all the way we thought. So, yeah, we raised a bunch of money and we kept it in like, a smart contract endowment, like a crypto thing on terror, which was a decentralized algorithmic stablecoin. And then Terra crashed. And so it's like all this money was all of a sudden worth, like, nothing. But the group that our smart contract endowment was on this platform called Angel Protocol, which were these idealists that we'd met that were out of Europe somewhere maybe, and they said that they were going to try to get our money back. And I was like, sure. But six months later they got. They finally got a Hold of us by email and said, hey, like, we can reimburse or we can compensate you for a lot of what was lost, which was crazy because it wasn't their fault. I was, like, super shocked.
• 3:29
  Speaker B: Wow. Wow.
• 3:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so we kind of had, like, this mandate, but, like, we were really, you know, just kind of burned almost. And so we just. We went and we wanted to do a project. And so this was in 2023, and we. We had, like. I taken kind of a few groups to the Critzer Ranch before. My wife's family is part of the Critzer Ranch.
• 3:54
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 3:54
  Speaker A: The Critzer Ranch is huge. It's been around since 1910. It is, like, just incredible. There's a number of different creeks that used to be, like, intermittent. And so there was always water in certain sections. There's a number of springs. They've all dried, you know, like. But it's, like, striking how high. Like, how high above the river, like, there would be springs anyway. Yeah. And so we had an opportunity to do some, like, landscape rehydration demonstrations on the Kritzer. And so that first year, we worked for about 10 days. Well, not quite. We worked for about seven days. We built a little over 100, like, structures. And at that time, we were calling them leaky weirs. And but what it is, it's like a leaky. It's like a leaky dam. And so, I mean, that's all, like, what we're doing is we build, like, natural infrastructure and dry land, streams.
• 4:50
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 4:51
  Speaker A: So, like, using rocks, trees, brush.
• 4:54
  Speaker B: Like you're playing like, your beavers, Christmas trees.
• 4:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, very much so. Using. Using stuff that's available. And that's, like, the primary constraint to, like, what we do, like, where we work is where's their freaking material accessibility, you know, because this is the planes, and there's not a lot to work on sometimes, but in some places, there's a. You know.
• 5:11
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker A: And so I know where you get
• 5:12
  Speaker B: a lot of salt cedar. You want some salt cedar?
• 5:14
  Speaker A: Yeah. So salt cedar is a tricky one. So salt cedar, we want to let it, like, dry out and die before we use it in the structures. And that's. Yeah, Like, a lot of these trees, if you plant them live, they'll. They'll propagate.
• 5:28
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 5:30
  Speaker A: But, yeah, like, there's. There. There sometimes there's a lot of, like, excess material that can be available. And so. Yeah. And so we did this work on the Tritzer, and then in 2023, that was when we got, like, a really, really wet year. There Was flooding.
• 5:46
  Speaker B: Yes, I remember that. Right.
• 5:48
  Speaker A: And so we got really accelerated feedbacks, and it was awesome. Like, many of our structures, like, you know, and so we built something like, say, like a foot and a half high, and it would back up sediment for, you know, 15, 20ft. And so, like, in that sediment is like a little sponge, you know, it just holds water. So even now, you know, it hadn't rained in months, but even now, if you go out there with a shovel, you dig in it, you know it's going to be wet. Wow. It's just really, like kind of a whole bunch of small things. And we were very pleased generally. Now, we. We had a lot of, like, failures, too, but they were educational. You know, we learned, like, what works, what doesn't.
• 6:21
  Speaker B: Right.
• 6:21
  Speaker A: What do we need to do different? And we were really excited about kind of the results and potential, but it was really hard to kind of get the public to care. And that was really, I mean, obvious why, I guess, you know, and it's not theirs. Like, they don't have. There's like. That is like, our big problem is, like, why or how can our communities, like, engage in the landscape that surrounds us when it's owned by somebody else, you know, and so by, like, very privileged few. And even they don't have, you know, a lot of discretion because it's in, like, trusts and, you know, just a mess. So we wanted to do work in places that were publicly accessible and. Or visible. And that's where, like, Wildcat Bluff came in. And Wildcat Bluff Nature center is just, like, a gem in northwest Amarillo. It's where the, like, flat uplands of the Llano meet the Canadian river breaks.
• 7:13
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 7:14
  Speaker A: And there are outcroppings of the Ogallala Formation on top of the Trujillo Formation on top of the Tokovas. And. And the Ogallala, Trujillo and the Tokovas are part of the high plains aquifer system. And so you have the Oglala, which is the major aquifer, and then the Dokkum, which consists. Like, the Trujillo and the Tacobus are part of the Dockham. Oh, okay. And so it's like, we have all these rocky outcroppings that are permeable and porous. Like, like, they can hold water.
• 7:43
  Speaker B: Water.
• 7:45
  Speaker A: And 50 and 100 years ago, like, they're. They were holding water.
• 7:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 7:49
  Speaker A: Like, this creek used to be, like, it was. It was. It was a barrier to navigation in the early 1900s and before, I mean, like, there was enough water to push wagons downstream. You know, it's like, crazy hard to comprehend because now it's a dry gully.
• 8:02
  Speaker B: Right?
• 8:02
  Speaker A: Right sized.
• 8:04
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 8:06
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so we started working at wildcat in 2024, and then we continued in 2025. It hadn't, like 2024 was pretty wet, but it hadn't been, like, super wet. But we've gotten enough time. Like. Like, the creeks have flowed about 10 times in the last two years, and we've caught a tremendous amount of water. And so we're, like, working on ways of, you know, like, quantifying that.
• 8:29
  Speaker B: Right.
• 8:29
  Speaker A: And we'll be able to do it over time using remote sensing. But we're really excited again about the results and. And that terms of, like, public interest. And so it's like, now that people can just, like, go out and see it, the public really cares. And we've gotten in front, I mean, like, thousand grade kids or something. Like, these elementary school kids, they go do guided hikes at Wildcat, and, you know, we get to take them to the creek and like, hey, this creek had water in it. It doesn't anymore. We're trying to, you know, kind of reverse that.
• 8:59
  Speaker B: Right, right.
• 9:00
  Speaker A: And really, like, what. What we really, like, like, the reason for our work is just like. Like, hope, you know, like. Like this, like, water hope. And is it just going to go away? Like, are we just, like, doomed to being poorer?
• 9:13
  Speaker B: Right.
• 9:14
  Speaker A: You know, or can we.
• 9:15
  Speaker B: Right.
• 9:16
  Speaker A: Can we, you know, stop this impoverishment?
• 9:20
  Speaker B: That's a good way to look at that. You know, what I say, Will, sometimes is we're, you know, there's. We're barreling towards a brick wall at 100 miles an hour. Like, we're going to hit it at 100 miles an hour. Are we going to be. Maybe you hit it at 20, you know what I mean? And. And while we're there, we're. We're making changes that makes that wall a lot smaller.
• 9:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's. It's really. It's like, shocking. But our. Our. So, so, like, the. The greatest, like, hurdle to our adaptive capacity as humans is the rule of law. You know, we're kind of like. Like, we're locked into this framework, like this kind of medieval technology that provides, you know, safety and stability, but also, you know, it's like. It's like what we got. Yeah. And so it's just been really. Anyway, it's just been fascinating.
• 10:11
  Speaker B: So. So you guys are. You're. I know that you guys have some americorps members and stuff, and so basically In a nutshell, what you're doing is you're working at. At what was once a running creek at Wildcat Cat Bluff. And you are. Have built these. These dams for backup, like a leaky dams, beaver dams kind of out there.
• 10:36
  Speaker A: That's right. We built like, we built about 80 the first year, and we made them larger and built about 20 to 30 more in 2025. And so we have approximately 100. Their average height is about, you know, a meter. Some of them are taller than I am. And they're like. We put a few hundred Christmas trees, the cottonwood carcasses, a lot of mesquite. The mesquite out there's like, there's some old mesquite that's brittle, and so you just kind of like, knock it down, you know, and so just using, like, these natural materials. And yet we'll use volunteers. So Wildcat Bluff is owned and operated by the Discovery center, and it's the Discovery center that has a number of AmeriCorps service members. And in fact, I am.
• 11:24
  Speaker B: Oh, you are. That's right. You are. Service. Yeah.
• 11:26
  Speaker A: Yeah. And. And so that one of our lessons at Wildcat was like, these places need capacity. And so we want, like, we want Wildcat to be like a demonstration and. And like a bioregional learning center. And. But it's not enough to just like, go in and do some work and then, like, you know, if we want to show people, we have to have somebody. And so it's a really great opportunity. Yeah. But it's also. It's way harder to, you know, it's like, harder than it should be. You know, it's. It's. Yeah. Just to keep these facilities operational and, you know.
• 12:01
  Speaker B: Exactly. Yes. Yes, this is very true. Yeah. And I. One of. That's one of the things I love about AmeriCorps, and I'm. WT is just such a shining example of. Of what a university can do to really get back to a community. I just, I'm. I'm like, I really do appreciate and. And really value what they're doing. I think it's really amazing. So
• 12:28
  Speaker A: why.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: What does it actually do? What's the purpose of this rehydration sort
• 12:36
  Speaker A: of answers, like hope. But. But the outcomes that we expect are cooler temperatures in the summer, warmer temperatures in the winter, reduced flooding, wetter during dry times, or slower to dry out or perhaps never dry out. In water budget terms, we want to minimize runoff and reduce evaporation. And so we do that by, like, increasing storage capacity and Then also, you know, percolation downwards and. Or side into the bank. And so, like. Like, you know, there's a bunch of different analogies, but we, like, kind of whenever there is excess water, we want to bank it. So that's available whenever there's not excess. Well, you know, whenever we're dry.
• 13:23
  Speaker B: Right.
• 13:24
  Speaker A: Yet Wildcat presents a really good opportunity to do that. It's just frustrating because we go long times without range, we go without rain.
• 13:34
  Speaker B: Right? Yeah.
• 13:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. And. And so we kind of have to ask these people, like. Like, if you want to go out there and see what we're doing, you have to use your imagination. You know, I mean, like, there's results to see, but, like, it's still. And. And so that's. And so we've been looking for, like, projects for this year. We also worked at Mission Ranch, which is on East Amarillo Creek. We built about a dozen kind of these. These structures along East Amarillo Creek, and that's below Thompson park. And it also has perennial flow. It was. It was been. It was awesome. We got really kind of unlucky with the timing. And so about a month after we worked out there, the city got its first kind of big rainstorm. And Amarillo pumps the playas to the south. Some of then they pump north into Thompson park and then release that. And so there's these, like, really severe kind of stormwater pulses that go north. And. Yeah, so. So we didn't. They didn't have an opportunity to, like. Like, the point is, we build a sponge. The sponge grows vegetation, and the vegetation holds everything together. But with our work.
• 14:38
  Speaker B: Gotcha.
• 14:39
  Speaker A: Kind of didn't have that opportunity. That happens.
• 14:43
  Speaker B: Right.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: Okay. It's also kind of like, we didn't want to put a bunch more resources there because of that risk. And so we were looking for other places to work. And Borger there has this place called Johnson Park. And Johnson park is approximately 200 acres on the southwest corner border. And it is on, like, it's on the south side of the Canadian River Valley, and there are these canyons, and the sides of the canyons are the Permian red beds, kind of exposed by erosion. And the Permian red beds are generally the impermeable bedrock that underlies the High Plains aquifer system.
• 15:17
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 15:18
  Speaker A: And so the aquifer sits on top of the Permian red beds, and sometimes kind of goes in it a little bit, and there's a little bit of exchange, but not much. And then up in, like, the. Like where Borger is, like, the high parts of Borger is remnant Ogallala. And so there's this kind of, like, little point where we have this kind of alluvium and sand and silt that holds water. And there is still natural discharge from the base of the aquifer down these canyons. And this is part of Rock Creek. And so here at Johnson park, there's perennial water. There's a bunch of structure to work with. It's just. We're really excited. It's a really good demonstration site. We're a bit constrained. Like, if we're going to do work for purposes of proving recharge, we want to work higher up in the landscape. Like, like outside of Hereford would present a good example. For example, because, like. Like, because there's room for the water to go down here. There's not so much room for the water to go down, but there is for the water to go side sideways.
• 16:23
  Speaker B: Interesting. Okay.
• 16:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so it's just like, like, so this year we're. We're doing our demonstration project work here at Johnson park and Rock Creek. And I'll go outside now and we can go look at it a little bit.
• 16:35
  Speaker B: That sounds great. So you're talking about, like, the elevation difference is what you're. When you say higher, you're like Hereford. You would want to do something at Hereford. Yes.
• 16:46
  Speaker A: So. So here we're at, like, the edge. Like, we're on the margins of the High Plains aquifer system. Hereford, you're up above.
• 16:55
  Speaker B: Okay. Okay. Yeah.
• 16:57
  Speaker A: And so, yeah, like, the higher up in the landscape. Yeah, there's just. There's a lot more storage in the downward direction. And so, like, here, it's just like. Like this watershed sits on top of the Permian. And so it can't.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: That's why there's not much. Okay, I'm understanding now. Okay, great. Gotcha.
• 17:16
  Speaker A: Yeah. And so in this place called Rock Creek. And that's because, like, the water that. That's from the base of the aquifer system, it encounters this. The quartermaster layers, this, like, white dolomitic limestone layer that is generally impermeable. And there's all these, like, big white rocks, and it's super cool. So you down. This is. Yeah. The board.
• 17:39
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 17:42
  Speaker A: There's like, the convention center over there. Swimming pool.
• 17:49
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 17:50
  Speaker A: And then there's disc golf course down here.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: This looks like the park in my hometown.
• 17:54
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's places like this all over.
• 17:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. And. And so that's like. Really. I think the point of our work is, like, we should be proud of these Places and care for them, you know, and there are, like, there are watersheds here, and because they're so scarce, like, they should be all important. And so. Yeah, yeah, we're trying to kind of highlight that. Yeah. So there. Can you. I don't know if my camera gets good reception, but you can kind of see the creek disc golf course. And we have a lot of invasive elms. There's a few cottonwood further down, but mostly invasive elm.
• 18:33
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 18:33
  Speaker A: And then you had, like, a lot of infrastructure. I mean, here the substrate really is like concrete, but there's a big elm. And we knocked, like, knock. Knocked that wood down and kind of built. You can kind of see. So, like, that's an example. And it's just like, really small. Okay, here's a better organized example. Yeah, it's just like a little beaver dam.
• 19:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just slows the water down just enough to let it sit there. And
• 19:11
  Speaker A: that's right. Just a bunch of small changes instead of like, you know, one big change. Right, yeah. And just like that water, if it's not moving, you know, it can soak into the sides. And also, like, the point of this, we don't want to detain the water. We want to retain it, slow it down. We do want to detain the sediments. And so all this wooden stuff, it's really lightweight. And if it floods, you know, a few feet, it's going to float up and go away. But if this is allowed to mature a little bit, there's going to be some sediments carried from downstream. And pretty soon those juniper are going to be all clogged up with, like, sand and silt and clay.
• 19:51
  Speaker B: Right. That's going to weigh it down.
• 19:54
  Speaker A: Exactly. And then that kind of holds it in place. And so it just kind of slowly builds up the channel floor. And we want to build it up so that it can kind of interact, you know, with that. That area over there. And so just kind of, you know, in a few years, we hope it resembles kind of like a chain of wetlands that kind of create a corridor.
• 20:14
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:15
  Speaker A: And that is. Is. Is capable of soaking in a lot of the flood water that. That we get because of the developed surfaces upstream. And the. The hydrograph here is exaggerated. And so where we have developed surfaces, like a plowed, you know, plowed field, or I mean, plate field, like, to a lesser extent, but even so. Or like a parking lot.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: You know, the drainage below, you're going to have a really steep hydrograph. And so it'll rain, it's going to like, you know, the water is going to rise really fast and it's going to come down really fast.
• 20:47
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:47
  Speaker A: Where you have undeveloped catchments or, or and like a healthier floodplain, you know, it might rise bit, but it just takes a lot, you know, just it's, it rises slower and it goes down slower. And so that, that, that regulation function is what we hope to recover. And so it's like, we talk about like watershed health. Like, you know, can the watershed function like a healthy watershed can, or is it incised and have degraded function where, you know, it rains and it floods and it goes away?
• 21:22
  Speaker B: So, you know, in some sense.
• 21:23
  Speaker A: And so, yeah, it, in some sense
• 21:26
  Speaker B: it feels like what you guys are doing is really similar to, you know, ply restoration. It's like here's, here's where nature intended for the aquifer to be recharged. And you know, our lack of understanding, we didn't protect those areas and, and so now they don't function for recharge. And so going in and restoring that, you know, you kind of. You've got these same kind of goals. It's like, how do we, how do we make sure that this. We're using the best use of when we do get rain? We're not, we're not wasting an inch of it. The water we keep.
• 22:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm really glad you said that. Yeah. Like, and still, like, in the term, I should include like playas and you know, our drainages and also like your roofs. You know, like, there's just there. I mean, anywhere we can. Yeah. Capture stormwater, rainwater and soak it into the ground. We should, we don't. Because we, we like kind of imported this legal framework from Europe. You know, like, we kind of have this. And that's not even entirely true. We just like, have developed this legal code or the system where. So like the state floodplain or water plant, for example, so we have like a water supply planning process and that meets every five years and there's a new draft every five years and then there's a flood planning process and it goes every five years, but they're on different years and so the groups don't talk to each other. It's like, like we have one, like one group charged with obtaining water security or like making sure there's available water and another group charged with removing the water from the landscape as fast as possible. Oh, goodness. But it's like it's the same water, you know, like that, that disconnection that like severance of. Of Interest is the problem. Yeah, it's just.
• 23:21
  Speaker B: That's really interesting and actually we're really excited about it. Yeah, I. It's really interesting and I'd love to. You know, we have a lot of. Of course, you know, kind of like every county we've got, you know, what we call draws. And I don't know if people will know what those are. And I don't even know if there's a better word to. To call it besides a draw. But that's. That's what, you know, generally we call it suck of. My brother's got Watershed. That's what I've wondered is, isn't that what they are? They're just a water.
• 23:52
  Speaker A: Absolutely. It's. It's a. It's a. Yeah, it's a. Yeah, yeah. It's an ephemeral watershed. And so it is. You know, it. It's not wet often, but it is every once in a while. Yeah.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: So this one in particular, my mother was telling me, I mean, she remembers that there were times when they were actually. It would have water in it and fish would appear. Isn't that something?
• 24:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:20
  Speaker B: And I'll tell you. Yeah. So the. Someone from my hometown told me that they had taken some ply lake dirt and put it in a bucket, a clay, like a clear, like one gallon jug. One gallon jug? Not a bucket, a one gallon jug. And like just put, you know, some of it, layer of it, and then they filled it with water. And only all these plants grew up. And you're seeing. We're talking about. Well, we're not talking about a ton of dirt, right. We're just talking about this layer of dirt and all these plants grew up. And she said, one day I looked over there and something was swimming and it was a lizard, which I'm sure was that salamander.
• 25:02
  Speaker A: Probably wild.
• 25:03
  Speaker B: Isn't that amazing?
• 25:04
  Speaker A: That is wild. It is. It is crazy how like. Yeah, you know, like. Like it'll be like just a flat, dry, hostile, you know, upland for years, and then there'll be a puddle for a few months, and then all of a sudden. Yeah, there's frogs and fish and turtles and it is wild. It is amazing that that's something like watching the drought of like, you know, 2012 or whatever was like, really, I think, kind of. Kind of like another formative, you know, experience. Because it was just depressing, you know, like, this country was like, dry. Meredith, you know, is basically gone criminal. And Amarillo had to, you know, spend hundreds of millions of dollars to, like, buy groundwater Rights from a billionaire. Yeah, it was like. It was a tough time, you know, but then we had two wet years and it's just like, like, hey, like, here's like, you know, life again.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: Right.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: But then we had dry years again. And it's because, like, whenever we do get water, it just. It another way, like, the objective of our work is to, like, reverse the rapid drainage of water from the landscape.
• 26:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Right. Because that part of that water cycle, too, is, I mean, part of it, you know, having. And I know they've proven this in other places, and particularly in Africa, where you catch and hold on to some of that water, you leave it there and it's. It does help increase, you know, evapotranspiration, which helps it rain.
• 26:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like vegetation cover. Like. Like, like the cycle increases that. Exactly.
• 26:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, that's. I think that's interesting. And, you know, I think it's so easy for us to think that we have to. If. If someone is not working on the silver bullet that's going to fix it, that there's no value in the small things that we can do that add up, you know, that there's. There is value in. And, you know, I think of it like I. I homeschooled my kids and I can remember when, you know, kind of dawned on me. It was like, you feel like you're. You're wasting your time because you're like, you know, spending, you know, this little bit of time, you know, every day doing something, and then suddenly the bucket is full. Suddenly they have learned their multiplication tables. Suddenly they know how to read because you've done the little, tiny, boring, seemingly unimportant things that have actually filled the bucket eventually, you know, so I think it's easy to judge people and look. Yes. Yeah, it is, because you're doing things that you. That you, you know, I mean, there's. There's like plenty of data to show that these things have. Have value, but it has to rain, you know, and. And so you still are. You have to charge ahead and continue to do what you're doing, you know, because we hear that a lot about the playa. It's like. Well, there's. There's no. Those are like 500 years. Well, is just 500 years matter or not? Does 100 years matter? You know, like. So it's not. If it's not going to impact me in a positive manner right now, then. Then I don't want to invest in, you know, and I just don't think that's Part of like who we would say that we are, you know, like who that we would say we are is that we, you know, believe and we care for others. I think that includes people that are yet unborn, the people that are coming, you know, behind us, that we have a responsibility to, to leave something for them.
• 29:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, I, I agree. And like this really like became, I don't know, like a passion. Like whenever I had kids, you know, I just like, like, you know, I'm struggling. Like, I'm kind of stuck here. I'm blessed with family. That's, you know, and like I am blessed with family. You know, I've, like, I've got deep ties to this place and I don't want like my child's life to be like this place. Yeah, it's just the hope aspect really just want to emphasize, you know, like there, there is like, yeah, we, we can, we can make things worse. We can make them better. And the little things like the, like that just really resonates me because like, I think like that like the, the vision of like a water secure panhandle is like, you know, a hundred thousand different little things. You know, it's something that happens that's distributed across the landscape and it's not, you know, a big old pipeline that delivers water from, you know, Mississippi.
• 30:00
  Speaker B: Well, you know, I know one of the things that's really stuck with me. Robert Mace asked him, I said how, you know, like what, you know, what's the thing that we can do? And he's like, it's, it's not one, it's like a buckshot. He said, you don't need the silver bullet. You like gold buckshot, you know, where you're doing all these small valuable things and, and I think it's just we live in a world where we feel like that problems are, are simple, but they're really complex, you know, and we have to find ways to deal with complex problems. And generally there's multiple, it's multiple layered solutions, you know, and, and finding. I think, I think that's also, you know, that everyone is, is gifted in different ways. And I think that shows how as a, as a people group we can take the things that we, that we are good at, the gifts that we've been given, and invest those in ways collectively that are those small drops along the way that help fill the.
• 31:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. So like we've got like a team down there in the canyon and I really, I want to go down and show them to you because yeah, like it's a bunch of like we each kind of had like this random story of how like we ended up here. But it's, it's always great, like. So there's a. I call him a kid. He's a young man at a canyon named Donovan. And we met him whenever he was a WT student. And he's like doing like creek restoration work professionally now. So during his off season he goes to work with Anna Branch or I guess like during our off season. Yeah, yeah. So like during the summer and early fall he's been working in like at northern New Mexico, Utah, California on some like federally funded projects. And it's just been great like for us because, you know, he goes and he learns a bunch, then he brings it back here. Of course the challenge we have, and I say we like collectively, like all of us is like, you know, like what, what are the appropriate like applications here? You know, we have these like, like kind of a unique context where like the southern high plains are disconnected from snowmelt. You know, it's kind of monsoonal. You know, there is tremendous like agriculture. You know, it's like, you know, 90 plus percent of, of certain uplands are, are farmed. We just have a unique. Yeah. Environment. But this is like, like the type of work that we're doing, like landscape rehydration I think is like proven. You know, it's like demonstrated in many different parts of the world. And so. Yeah. What does that look like here?
• 32:48
  Speaker B: Here. Right and Right.
• 32:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 32:51
  Speaker B: Right. That's, that's so true because you know, I know I've seen, you've seen that like the African, the little, the smiles that they, they dig those little ditches really to where they hold the water, you know, and that's how they've rehydrated some landscape there. And I think that's so true. It's like, it's solutions have to be, you know, place based, but you don't necessarily have to start from scratch. You take what other people have learned and figure out how to apply it to your area.
• 33:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's awesome. And in fact that reminds me of something so, so Ogalola life that we started a lot like four years ago or something is going great like and running an independent nonprofit. It's really sinking hard and there's all these awesome people, like it'll go on commons and Discovery center and elsewhere that like want to support our work. And so OG Life kind of ceased its existence as independent non profit and it's now a part of Oklahoma Commons.
• 33:44
  Speaker B: Oh okay. Okay.
• 33:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then that's been great. That like O.C. has just been.
• 33:51
  Speaker B: They're wonderful.
• 33:51
  Speaker A: Let's get the word out there. Yeah. Like a much larger network.
• 33:55
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 33:56
  Speaker A: They've also, they've done this like client and, and they have asked me to put together.
• 34:03
  Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, we're losing you.
• 34:07
  Speaker A: Oh, man. I'll keep going higher.
• 34:08
  Speaker B: There we go.
• 34:10
  Speaker A: That's the goal is to.
• 34:12
  Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So what, what you're saying was we just, I think people might not have heard it, but that Ogallala Commons has a. Basically a training program on their website now. So you can get trained in imply like restoration. And you're wanting to do the same thing with this, this whole rehydration on these watersheds.
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah, exactly.
• 34:38
  Speaker B: Okay. Awesome.
• 34:39
  Speaker A: Yeah. And we do that in part by like, like talking about local context, but then also looking at other places around the world that have climate like landscape or even cultural similarities.
• 34:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 34:50
  Speaker A: And so yeah, like see what works elsewhere and then, you know, where might we want to try what here in the high plains.
• 34:57
  Speaker B: Excellent. That's great. That is wonderful. Well, well, this has been super. This has been really interesting and I, I, I'd love for you to, you know, at some point come down to where we are and we're doing some work now in my home county of Terry and I'd love to. We've got, you know, several of these watersheds that we have access to and we'd love to figure out, you know, something that might be helpful for when it does rain.
• 35:25
  Speaker A: I want to come for sure. And it will rain. You know, it gets like frustrating.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: Yes, yes, it will rain. It will rain again. Well, thank you so much. We'll, we'll put all the information for Wildcat Bluff and etc in the show notes so people can go there. And also to. We'll also connect a link to the Ogallala Commons so that people can see that ply lake course. Because I think that's something that would be awesome for people to, to really take part in. So Will, this has been really interesting and people can come to Wildcat Bluff and, and to the, to the wildlife center there. They have a center and, and I've
• 36:08
  Speaker A: never been wildcat plus so many people center.
• 36:11
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: So it's like 750 acres like trail and then our next door neighbor is this animal center, Wild West Animal Rehab.
• 36:22
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 36:22
  Speaker A: But it is really cool. They do tours and they've got like a lot of it is worth a stop. Yeah.
• 36:29
  Speaker B: Awesome.
• 36:29
  Speaker A: It's really neat for like kids doing, like, nature education.
• 36:32
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 36:32
  Speaker A: Because we can do a guided hike, and then they can go over and actually, like, see some prairie dogs and whatnot.
• 36:37
  Speaker B: Right. Awesome. Okay, great. Well, we'll talk to you soon. I appreciate it.
• 36:42
  Speaker A: Sorry about my technical difficulties. I appreciate it.
• 36:45
  Speaker B: Thanks. Thank you so much. Bye. Friends, thank you for joining us for another episode. I hope that you enjoyed meeting Will and learning a little bit about the work that he's doing out there. If you're ever in Amarillo or want to do something with your kiddos, that sounds like a great place to take them. And I look forward to having you back. And for another episode of Conservation Stories,