The Plow That Broke the Plains, 2011

Recent news reports from Texas and Arizona, accompanied by video testimony that can be seen on You Tube on a daily basis, has documented the new wave of dust storms that are now tearing through the American Southwest. All it takes, as many observors have noted, is a drought, no vegetation and strong winds and these conditions are all combining to provide the dirt and dust storms that are choking people from breathing, stopping planes from flying and automobiles from moving on major highways and streets.

Though these storms appear to be new they were well documented during the 1930's, when the Dust Bowl was first given its name. An extended, multi-year drought, high winds and the refusal of American farmers to build adequate vegetative protection led to the destruction of much of the farming in states like Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas. Wheat farmers had plowed up the prairie lands, with no care for stewardship of the land, until their faulty practices ran into a major drought that lasted for close to a decade. People died, families lost their homes and farms, and whole states were choked with the debris and top soil blown off by the violence of winds.

In Pare Lorentz's 27 minute documentary, The Plow that Broke the Plains, produced in 1936, the opening narrative begins:

High winds and sun

A Country without rivers

And with little rain

Settler:Plow at your peril

Two hundred miles from water

Two hundred miles from town

But the land is new

Many were disappointed

The rains failed

And the sun baked the light soil.

The film goes on to document the mistakes made by the Plains farmers when they opened up the prairies to unlimited farming with no concerns about the environmental costs that would soon come due. It also proposes simple solutions to help fight erosion and makes a plea for the country as a whole to help the dispossessed who were hungry and homeless, because of this man made eco-disaster.

Today the disaster is coming again and while Federal aid may be easier to acquire, the mistakes of the the early farmers are still being made. The simple solutions that protect against the natural droughts that appear have been neglected and while droughts can occur at any time, the refusal to plant adequate vegetation that would help protect the environment has occurred once again.

Farming on open prairies is akin to settling in our vast flood plains. When it gets dry people start to suffer and get buried under dirt. When it rains too much, as it did in the Upper Middle West this year, whole communities in flood plains find themselves under water.

Lorentz warned against flooding in his The River (1937) and perhaps it is time that we watch both short films again to understand that what is happening today is the simple repetition of history.