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Playas Work For Texans

Category: Restoration

Restoring Playas Brings Benefits to Landowners, Wildlife, and Water Supply Photo by Texas Parks & Wildlife

Restoring Playas Brings Benefits to Landowners, Wildlife, and Water Supply

“If your patient’s running out of blood, quit poking holes in it,” says Chris Grotegut, veterinarian, landowner, and playa restoration advocate.

For landowners in the Texas Panhandle like Grotegut, that patient is the Ogallala Aquifer — the lifeblood of agriculture, communities, and ecosystems across the region. As groundwater levels continue to decline, restoring playas has become a practical, proven way to slow the bleed. These shallow, seasonal wetlands not only recharge the aquifer, but also improve water quality, reduce erosion, enhance drought resilience, and support local wildlife.

“Playas are a vital part of a functioning agricultural landscape and have supported life on the plains for generations.”

A shallow, round depression in a field might not look like much to the untrained eye, but if it’s a playa, that low spot is one of the most important features on the Southern High Plains, especially when it rains.

Found at the lowest point of a watershed, playas are round, shallow basins lined with clay soil that collect and hold rainfall and runoff, forming temporary wetlands. These natural recharge basins play a vital role in replenishing groundwater and supporting wildlife. Because playa health is directly tied to the future of rural life and water in the region, more and more landowners are choosing to restore playas on their land.

Since 2017, the Texas Playa Conservation Initiative has worked with landowners to restore nearly 3,900 acres of playas across the Texas Panhandle. The program offers 100% cost-covered restoration and technical support, helping producers bring these wetlands back to life.

“Healthy playas are the primary source of recharge for the Ogallala Aquifer,” explained Tavin Dotson, regional biologist for playa lakes with Ducks Unlimited. “This vital function not only replenishes our groundwater but also improves water quality in the region.”

Playas have an unpredictable and rapidly changing wet-dry cycle that is essential to their function. Whether they are dry, moist, saturated, or flooded, playas are always working. In fact, without this natural cycle, they wouldn’t be as effective at recharging the aquifer.

When dry, the clay soil in the playa basin contracts and forms deep cracks. Then, when it rains, the first flush of water from the surrounding area flows toward the playa. As water moves through the grasses surrounding the playa, sediment that may carry contaminants from farm fields is trapped and stopped from entering the playa. The water continues into the playa and into the cracks — beginning its journey to the underlying aquifer.

It’s not about capturing rainfall directly — the recharge process depends on how water moves through the cracks and continues making its way through the underlying geology over time. In a region where water is limited and groundwater levels are declining, the role of playas as slow, steady contributors to groundwater replenishment is more important than ever.

“Playas are a vital part of a functioning agricultural landscape and have supported life on the plains for generations,” Dotson said. “Restoration doesn’t mean taking land out of production,” he added. “It’s about helping the playa do what it was designed to do — recharge the aquifer, provide habitat and improve the land — while still working for the producer.”

“The program is designed to be landowner-friendly, with minimal restrictions. Most of our new projects come through referrals — landowners telling neighbors about their experience and encouraging them to participate. That kind of word-of-mouth speaks volumes.”

Over the years, many playas have been modified and are no longer fully functioning. Playa restoration reverses past modifications to playas by removing accumulated sediment, filling drainage features, redirecting water back into the playa, and protecting the playa with a native grass buffer. Texas Playa Conservation Initiative works directly with landowners to plan and carry out these projects, all at no cost to the landowner.

Playas have shown remarkable resilience, said Heather Johnson, Region 1 Migratory Game Bird Specialist with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, based in Littlefield. “Even after a century of disturbance, when we restore a playa, it often rebounds quickly, coming back to life with native vegetation and wildlife,” Johnson said.

Interest in playa restoration is largely driven by word of mouth — and by results.

“Landowner response to the program has been overwhelmingly positive,” Johnson said. “The program is designed to be landowner-friendly, with minimal restrictions. Most of our new projects come through referrals — landowners telling neighbors about their experience and encouraging them to participate. That kind of word-of-mouth speaks volumes.”

Besides the incentive payment, landowners are seeing real benefits.

“The program has helped raise awareness about how valuable a healthy, functioning playa can be to a producer,” Johnson said. “Since most of our restoration work happens on land that’s no longer actively farmed, there’s an added benefit of improved forage quality for livestock in and around the playa. Even if the landowner doesn’t see it immediately, restoration likely improves the amount of water returning to the aquifer beneath their property. And without water, they can’t sustain their operation — their ability to stay on the land depends on it.”

Playas also offer a ripple effect across surrounding communities.

“Across the South Plains, our communities depend heavily on groundwater. Restoring playas directly helps us store more of this vital resource underground, ensuring our towns can not just survive but to grow.”

Johnson emphasized that restored playas benefit entire communities, not just individual landowners.

“Many High Plains communities rely entirely on groundwater,” she said. “By restoring playas, we help ensure a sustainable water supply for local communities. However, recharge alone can’t keep pace with the demand created by intensive irrigation and manicured lawns. It’s important to align our water use with what the land can naturally support.

Grotegut has never shied away from hard truths, especially when it comes to the long-term sustainability of agriculture in the Texas High Plains. For him, playa restoration isn’t just good conservation, it’s sound business and moral responsibility. The economics of water use, he says, have too often ignored the deeper costs — the generational debt we’re accumulating by overdrawing a resource that can’t keep up.

“You’re not just killing your farm, you’re killing your kids’ future if they have to follow in your footsteps on that land,” he said.

That’s why he’s shifted his operation away from intensive irrigation and toward grasslands, conservation, and smarter water management.

When functioning properly, playas also provide critical habitat. During wet periods, they support migratory birds, amphibians, small mammals and a variety of other species. In dry times, they sustain native grasses, pollinators and offer grazing value for cattle.

More wildlife means more opportunities for local tourism through hunting and birdwatching. And educational outreach — from landowner workshops to youth events — helps people understand the value of these unique ecosystems.

Looking ahead, playa conservation is a powerful investment in the future.

“Playas are part of a natural system designed to recycle water back into the ground, making them a critical long-term resource,” Johnson said. “While we’re seeing fewer rain events, the storms we do get tend to be more intense. It’s essential that our playas are intact and functioning so they can absorb and filter that water when it does come, supporting aquifer recharge and providing vital habitat for wildlife. Restoring and protecting these playas now ensures they’ll be there when future generations need them most.”

“By focusing on playa conservation now, we’re safeguarding the water resources that our kids and grandkids will depend on,” Dotson added. “It’s about leaving them a legacy — a resilient landscape, where the natural resources and the unique character of the Texas High Plains are preserved.”

Put Your Playa Back to Work

For more information about playa restoration opportunities, contact us.

Heather Johnson, Texas Parks and Wildlife
806-475-1308
heather.johnson@tpwd.texas.gov

Tavin Dotson, Ducks Unlimited
806-392-1473
tdotson@ducks.org

Grounded in Water: A Landowner Rethinks Future Supply Photo by Heather Johnson

Grounded in Water: A Landowner Rethinks Future Supply

HEREFORD, Texas — In the heart of the High Plains, where drought is more familiar than flood, veterinarian and landowner Dr. Chris Grotegut is helping his community face a difficult truth: if Hereford wants water tomorrow, it has to act today.

“We’ve been outpacing our recharge since the 1950s,” Grotegut said. “That’s the fallacy of the irrigation experiment — nobody stopped to ask how long the aquifer could keep up.”

A fourth-generation steward of his family’s land, Grotegut has spent the last 15 years shifting away from intensive irrigation. He restored more than seven playas across his ranch and helped spearhead a community-wide water plan aimed at securing Hereford’s water future — not just for the next decade, but for the next 150 years.

“People think we’ve got time,” he said. “We don’t.”

The concept is simple: reduce water demand, increase natural recharge, and stop betting the future on short-term extraction. At the center of that plan is playas — shallow depressions in the landscape that funnel rainfall into the Ogallala Aquifer.

“A single year of irrigation can burn through six years’ worth of urban water supply,” he said. “If we want our towns to survive, we need to stop using water like there’s no limit. Because there is.”

Playas are round, shallow depressions found at the lowest point of a watershed. Their basins are lined with clay soil, which allows them to temporarily hold water from rainfall and runoff. Though they may appear dry much of the year, these unique features play a critical role in the landscape — helping recharge groundwater aquifers and providing habitat for wildlife when wet.

“You can see how fast a playa recharges just by watching how long water stays after a rain,” he explained. “The faster it disappears, the better. That means it’s going down — into the aquifer — not just evaporating.”

Grotegut’s community plan combines playa restoration, native grassland conversion, urban water efficiency, and even wastewater reuse. He believes this multi-pronged approach can help Hereford meet its needs — without relying on costly, long-shot solutions like desalination or water importation.

“A single year of irrigation can burn through six years’ worth of urban water supply,” he said. “If we want our towns to survive, we need to stop using water like there’s no limit. Because there is.”

For Grotegut, the turning point came during the 2011 drought. Despite full irrigation, his crop yields were wildly inconsistent. “We realized that if droughts got worse — and they will — we’d have no tools left to adapt,” he said. “That’s when we started putting land back into grass.”

The change worked. Since transitioning much of his operation from row crops to grazing lands, his wells have stabilized, and in some areas, water levels have even risen.

“It’s not about quitting farming — it’s about doing it in a way that works with nature, not against it,” he said. “Playas are part of that. So is native grass. So is thinking beyond the next season.”

A trained veterinarian, Grotegut says his conservation mindset comes naturally. “If your patient’s bleeding out, you don’t keep poking holes,” he said. “The aquifer’s no different.”

Today, Grotegut sees playa restoration as both a practical and ethical responsibility — especially for those who’ve benefited from the land’s productivity. He believes the cost of doing nothing is far greater than the investment required to fix it.

“Bringing water back to this region isn’t going to happen,” he said. “But we can stretch what we have. We can protect it. And we can do it in a way that honors the landowners who built these communities.”

His message to skeptics is clear: Playas aren’t a liability — they’re an asset. As water becomes scarcer, properties with healthy recharge zones and native vegetation are only becoming more valuable.

“You don’t win a race by going the fastest. You win by not running out of fuel,” Grotegut said. “In the High Plains, water is our fuel. And playas are our best bet to keep running.”

Learn more about Grotegut’s conservation efforts in this video about the 2022 Lone Star Land Steward Award winner and listen to him talk about his conservation story in Balance the Ledger podcast.

Get Help Restoring Your Playa

For more information about playa restoration opportunities, contact us.

Heather Johnson, Texas Parks and Wildlife
806-475-1308
heather.johnson@tpwd.texas.gov

Tavin Dotson, Ducks Unlimited
806-392-1473
tdotson@ducks.org.

Playas for the Plains

Playas for the Plains

Many playa lakes of the Southern Plains have been plowed under cropland, silted over, or diverted into irrigation pits. But the value of these shallow lakes for groundwater recharge and wildlife habitat has landowners and conservation groups working together to restore playa lakes for the Plains and the future of its economy and biodiversity.

Leave Things as God Made Them Photo by Texan by Nature

Leave Things as God Made Them

In early 2018, Dustin McNabb helped his mother-in-law fill a large, deep pit (600’ x 50’ x 20’) in an unfarmed playa on her dryland farm through the Texas Playa Conservation Initiative. The playa sits on the front half of 80 acres, next to a highway in Lubbock County. The family is letting the whole 80 acres go back to natural vegetation, and Dustin is managing it for upland birds.

“I’m the president of the local chapter of Quail Forever. That’s what got me started messing around out there. I’ve always been a hunter and have an affinity for quail and pheasant. So I’ve been working on restoring everything to a native habitat that’s more beneficial to those birds—and anything else that wants to roam around out there.

“Over the last few years, I’ve learned a lot about how important things are and in some cases you need to leave things the way God made ‘em—those playas being one of them. They are designed that way for a reason.

“The Texas Playa Conservation Initiative—how it’s designed, what it’s doing, the way that it’s run—is done very well and done with the best ideas at heart. It really is something I think everyone could benefit from if they would just consider allowing somebody on their property to do some work. It was a great program for us. The wildlife, vegetation, groundwater, and everything is going to benefit in the long run.”

Texas Playa Conservation Initiative

Texas Playa Conservation Initiative

Beneath the feet of millions of Texans, below the waring grasslands of the panhandle, lie thousands of access points to the biggest aquifer in America. These shallow basins, called playas, are Texas’ recharge points for the Ogallala Aquifer, and they play a critical role in providing a plentiful amount of clean water for the entire region. However, the health and integrity of the playas, and ultimately the assurance of a steady water supply, is declining. Over-grazing, modifications from older irrigation practices, accumulation of silt deposits from erosion, and many other factors contribute to the declining quality of playas in the Texas panhandle. To counter this trend, the Texas Playa Conservation Initiative works with landowners and other stakeholders across the panhandle region to incentivize the restoration and rejuvenation of healthy playas.

Clovis Looks to Playas to Help Supply Municipal Water Photo by Brian Slobe

Clovis Looks to Playas to Help Supply Municipal Water

 

Read the Transcript

The city of Clovis, New Mexico, is taking an innovative approach to ensuring its future water supply — playa conservation. And what this city of 38,000 is doing might become a model for other municipalities on the High Plains. The city government put a million dollars of economic development funds toward playa conservation. Most immediately they’re doing a stormwater runoff project to fill playa lakes. Longer range, Clovis city officials are talking with adjacent landowners and ag producers about rehabbing those playas, and obtaining water rights.

“The farmer is converting to dryland farming, enhancing their playa lake recharge and getting a long-term agreement to save that water for municipal and industrial use.”

Clovis mayor David Lansford, who told me cattle feedlots came in decades ago. But more recently the region’s seen huge dairy farms established. It’s lucrative for local producers to grow forage for those milk cows.

“We can only wait so long to start implementing conservation methods outside the city where the water is being mined aggressively. Eighty-five or ninety percent of the water in Curry County is used to put on crops, and the rate that is going is unsustainable by a long shot.”

Lansford says in the county, there are 10 to 15 ag producers who understand their water supply will be critical for Clovis and the adjacent Cannon Air Force Base.

“They don’t want to be the ones that ran the well dry. They are community minded people. They understand and care about the survival and sustainability of Curry County’s economy.”

The challenge is finding a way to compensate those producers for going dryland.

“They’re going to participate as long as it makes business sense. They aren’t going to go along with $100, let’s say, when they can make $500. That doesn’t make any sense.”

One Clovis neighbor is rancher Vincent de Maio.

“The idea that we retire some water closer to the city is certainly the first step they want to take. I see it as a much bigger project, and I see it much more extensive. I see the Clovis area as really being the model going forward, because what’s happening here is happening in west Texas, is happening in Kansas and Nebraska, all the way across the Ogallala.”

Mayor Landsford understands playas recharge the aquifer the city pulls its water from, and Clovis has playas in town. One project Clovis is pursuing diverts storm runoff into those lakes “as opposed to running them down the bar ditches and onto the highway.”

Then find methods, engineering, land- and vegetation-management methods that return playas to their natural functioning form.

“And then divert that water into those playa lakes and create not only a recharge funnel for the aquifer, but create a habitat for wildlife and various living species.”

Ken Rainwater’s a water-resources engineer at Texas Tech. He’s involved with the consulting firm doing the Clovis drainage master plan.

“As the stormwater runs through the city of Clovis, the flow paths are controlled by where the playa lakes are. Part of my job is to work with the information they’ve gathered to try to get an idea about how the playas behave during and between storms.”

Mike Carter is Playa Lakes Joint Venture coordinator. This project to capture storm runoff and send it into playas, Mike says that’s new and innovative thinking.

“If you triple the amount of water going into a playa by diverting runoff that’s doing damage to roads anyway and then you do it with sediment buffers so that you don’t do damage to the playa, you could be looking at a situation where you’re tripling the amount of recharge. That’s exactly the kind of solution that we’re looking for. That’s brilliant thinking.”

Playa Country, which ended in late 2016, was a weekly show that featured conservation and wildlife experts — as well as farmers, ranchers and land managers — talking about conservation practices that improve wildlife habitat and landowners’ bottom-line. This episode of Playa Country was made possible by a grant from the Wildlife Conservation Society, with support provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Practice What You Preach Photo by Texan by Nature

Practice What You Preach

When Jan Minton, a former NRCS biologist, inherited her great-grandfather’s farm in Floyd County, she knew she was going to need some help. “It’s one thing when you work for NRCS and give private landowners alternatives. You have your Volkswagen version and your Cadillac version of practices to implement in order to reach objectives. It was a whole other pack of dogs when the place was mine, I made the decisions, and everything was at risk.”

According to Jan, the property had been ‘farmed to death’ by the time she took over its management. Over the years, two playas on the 854-acre property were altered to function as tailwater pits that captured and stored water that ran off irrigated fields, with a large trench cut through the largest playa. There was also accumulated sediment that needed to be excavated and removed. With help from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, she restored the playas by filling in the pit and ditch, removing silt, and planting a buffer.

“You guys are my heroes!” says Jan about the partners who helped make the playa restoration possible. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”