Adam Howard
ES 110G
The Dust Bowl
April, 28, 2014

The Dust Bowl

The dust bowl happened in the 30’s. It was a period of severe drought. Severe drought and wind erosion ravaged the Great Plains for a decade. The drought damaged the agriculture and the environment in a detrimental way. Because of the drought and the farmers not using dry land farming methods at the time to prevent wind erosion during the dust bowl. The farmers had plowed the soil before the dust bowl disrupting the grasses that would have normally kept the soil in place during high winds. Excessive cultivation of the land in the 1930s exposed dry soil to the wind. The water that was in the ground no longer soaked in it just ran off because there were no roots to help it soak into the ground. When the winds blew it turned the soil into dust that blew everywhere. The dust storms were called “black blizzards”. Visibility was greatly reduced during these times of high wind and made it very hard for people to see in front of them. The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected many people and a lot of land was compromised. The dust storms greatly degraded the productivity of the soil. People’s health was hindered greatly by breathing in all of the dust and particles in it. The air quality was horrible making it unbearable to live in those circumstances. Families had to leave their homes because they couldn’t breathe with the dust getting into their lungs. They were getting pneumonia from the dust in their lungs. This made life unbearable for them.
The methods that farmers used during the time of the dust bowl put the soil in conditions that were prone to massive erosion. They plowed the land too much and disrupted the native grasses. Their methods of burning wed caused the land to be robbed of the natural nutrients that were in the soil. The native plants were destroyed and with them gone there was nothing to hold down the soil in high wind conditions. The drought caused the crops to fail because without water the crops could not survive.
The tractors that they used also put toxins in the environment. After good years of producing crops, the drought started and the land could produce no more crops. Farmers continued to plow the lands in hopes of the rain returning. The winds became so much that the currents in the winds with static in them destroyed crops. Animals were starving and dying. Jack rabbits overtook the land eating everything that was in site. The farmers killed a lot of the rabbits to keep them from destroying what was left of their fields. The farmers were no longer able to make a living and had to leave the area to find work to support their families.
“Using computer simulations, Cook, Seager and Ronald Miller of LDEO found the "black blizzards" exacerbated the drought and pushed it northward into the Great Plains. The airborne dust particles reflected sunlight back into space, leading to cooler surface temperatures. As temperatures dipped, so did evaporation. "You basically cut off the moisture source to clouds and precipitation," Cook said. Following the Dust Bowl disaster, agencies enacted land-use rules to reduce soil erosion and prevent further such catastrophic dust storms in the United States. Even so, the researchers say, global warming and an increased pressure to expand agriculture in light of a possible food crisis are creating conditions ripe for dust storms in other regions worldwide.”(1).
The people of that time were very selfish they got out of the land what they wanted without any thought of what it might do to the environment and the people that depended on the environment to survive. Millions of acres of grassland were destroyed for the farmers’ profits. The dust bowl is was the worst man made ecological disaster in American history.
The government enacted many new rules to farmers to promote agriculture health and sustainability. They enacted these rules to save the land and prevent any further catastrophic events like the dust bowl from happening again. “The Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program started under the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, is one of the best-known New Deal programs. The WPA was a work relief program that employed more than 8.5 million people to build roads, bridges, airports, public parks and buildings. It took millions of tons of dirt and debris blowing from the Plains all the way into Washington D.C., known as "Black Sunday," to move Congress to pass the Soil Conservation Act and establish the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) under the Department of Agriculture. The SCS (now the Natural Resources Conservation Service) promoted healthy soil management and farming practices, and paid farmers to put such practices to work on their farms. The legacy of the Service's practices such as irrigation, crop diversity and no-till farming continue in the Plains today.”(2).
It’s sad that it took such a horrible event for congress to get involved and make provisions to ensure that this type of thing wouldn’t happen. Many lives were lost due to the effects of the dust bowl and a lot of livestock was lost. The effects are detrimental to not only the environment but the people that live in the environment. When we let people tear up the land in which we live unforeseen catastrophic events like the dust bowl are going to happen. You cannot disrupt the natural environment without having consequences.
My great-grandmother lived in Oklahoma during the dust bowl and she has told us stories about the dark clouds of dust that would cover their houses and they couldn’t see a foot in front of them. As a child I just thought they were exaggerated stories until seeing this film and reading more about the dust bowl. She said that her Daddy would keep them inside with wet towels around the doors and windows to help keep the dust out. That they lived most of her young years eating only beans and corn bread because they couldn’t grow anything. I guess I know now that all of those stories were real and I feel bad that I thought that they were exaggerated tales. Kind of like walking up hill both ways in 3 feet of snow on the way to school. Maybe that wasn’t exaggerated either. I know that I will definitely research things she says from now on, and appreciate the part of history that I can learn from. This film was very interesting and the devastation that was caused by the dust bowl was horrendous. I hope that we never have to see that type of catastrophe.

References
1. Bruner, Jeanna. “Why the 1930’2 Dust Bowl was so bad”. May 4, 2008. Viewed on line at: http://www.livescience.com/4915-1930s-dust-bowl-bad.html
2. Trimarchi, Maria. “What Caused The Dust Bowl?” viewed on line at: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/dust-bowl-cause1.htm