I’ve just watched a preview of an upcoming public television special, “The Dust Bowl,” directed by acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns. And there’s a chilling message near its end.

We’d better be mindful of our water. The consequences of doing otherwise are too chilling to ponder.

The special takes note of this fundamental truth: If we lose the water we lose the land.

There are still many of our Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle neighbors who remember the Dust Bowl well. It turned daylight into dark in an instant, as black clouds of choking dirt rolled for years across the landscape, enveloping everything – and every being – in their path.

What caused it? Two factors: indiscriminate plowing of native grasslands and crippling drought.

It’s the drought that should cause us great concern today. We’ve developed better plowing techniques that help reduce soil erosion. However, we haven’t yet stopped using Ogallala Aquifer water to a degree that threatens its existence – and our communities’ survival.

One of the people interviewed in the documentary, which will air on KACV-TV on Nov. 18 and 19, says we could run out of water in sections of the Texas Panhandle in the next 20 years. Then what? Well, think of the worst, and it’s likely to happen.

Irrigated farmland is gulping huge quantities of groundwater every hour. The aquifer doesn’t regenerate nearly fast enough to replace it.

The Dust Bowl special doesn’t dwell too much on the water supply, but there’s enough of it in the broadcast to cause anyone who’s paying attention some serious concern.