"Ogallala Inc." argues, through close examination of one of the most controversial instances of groundwater development in US history, that the privatization of groundwater has precipitated new and enduring forms of white supremacy in the American Southwest. Beginning in the early twentieth century, white farmers and developers worked tirelessly to measure, control, and extract groundwater from the Ogallala Aquifer, what was at the time the largest source of fresh groundwater in the United States. Through these efforts, a formidable and unified community of groundwater irrigators was formed, a collective that was capable of rapidly transforming a vast and barren landscape into an oasis of industrial farms, feedlots, and urban hubs. As Ogallala Inc. reveals, a central component of this water development scheme was the establishment of racially segregated work and residential practices. Unlike their white counterparts, Black and Latinx migrant workers were increasingly forced into a low-wage and seasonal labor system that was leveraged to harness the aquifer’s energy. Amidst this weaponization of water and labor, local Black and Latinx communities engaged in innovative attempts at seeking workplace and residential justice. By interweaving an analysis of the creation of underground property systems and extractive technologies with a place-based study of migrants, workers, and activists within this transforming landscape, "Ogallala Inc." illustrates how efforts to understand, control, and own groundwater have constructed durable systems of environmental inequity and shaped local modes of activism.
Understanding this period of energy transition and community building, with its implications for the modern economy and the climate crisis, is vital to reckoning with the possibilities for building just transitions that extend beneath the surface.