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Texas Monthly looks at the risk of depleting the Ogallala Aquifer, "a vast underground reservoir that stretches from the High Plains of Texas all the way to the Dakotas" and the "largest single groundwater source in the United States." The story exposes the plan of Boone Pickens, a former "oil tycoon and a feared corporate raider," to pump up water from Ogallala and to sell it to "cities like San Antonio and El Paso that are running out of water." The reporter finds that the dangerous approach of treating water like a marketable commodity results from a Texas law, which allows a property owner to "pump as much as he wishes ... no matter if he dries up his own water and his neighbors' water along with it."

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