Marie Killebrew

Canadian | Rancher

Marie and her husband, Walter Killebrew, operated a cattle ranch that had been in their family for more than 100 years, located near Canadian, Texas in the sand-sage country of the Panhandle’s Canadian Breaks. In an area that typically gets less than 20 inches of rain, and is highly dependent on agriculture, they grew concerned about plans to export groundwater from the Ogallala aquifer to cities to the south, including Amarillo and possibly San Antonio. In the year 2001, they filed in opposition to neighbors’ permits for high-production water wells, drawing as much as an acre-foot per acre per year, for sale and export. A settlement resulted with some conditions on the wells’ siting, flow, and production sales, but Mrs. Killebrew remained concerned about the long-term effects of such groundwater mining, and the general impact of the rule of capture.