Water for the West
General Topic
I was watching the flooding in Montana, around Yellowstone. Thats a tough situation, I have been reading a scientific journal of late, about water for the west. There are more and more people moving into the regions, where is the water going to come from.....
Are there problems now? Just curious, but this journal said, by 2024 and 25, it could get very restrictive....... There are places working on this solution, but it might be awhile before they come up with the answer,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I find science fascinating and all the brite minds out there. There is a professor, at the University of Wis, Mechanical Engineer, that has been working on refining diesel fuel to make it even cheaper and now he might have it..
There are engineers of various thought, that show a plan, on how to tap, all the springs of the Great Lake regions, and the lakes themselves, to pipeline water, to areas of need,,,,,,,,,, pretty cool stuff
One PHD biochemical engineer, said,,,, I need Govt funding for projects, but then I need Govt to get out of the way, for the solutions,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ha ha
Non humid, dry climates are very inviting as a place to live. For good reasons. There is nothing more miserable then 80 or above temps, in a humid climate. Like much of the east durning summer. So, gravitation to areas that might be hot but, aren’t sticky, is natural, for that reason. And, the lack of BUGS that like sucking blood.
With that said, fixing the wests water problem isn’t hard. It’s just expensive. And, with renewed interests from many people, likely to be lagging behind development.
In my opinion, I think it’s a problem that should be left to the individual. Not government. There is a reason people inhabit certain areas. And, sustainable resources is why. Trying to make areas that won’t support the massive use of water by people, useable to those people, shouldn’t be a tax payer problem. It’s their problem.
If where you want to build won’t perk for your sanitation field, you don’t build there. Or, you invest in newer systems that allow you to live there while managing your waste. So, why should we try and make it a problem for those that don’t live there?
And diesel fuel isn’t going to get cheaper due to technology advances. Because government will just take that share too with increased taxes, even if it were that much more affordable.
That’s my thoughts. I love science too. I just don’t think science is the answer here. Rather, common sense. Just my opinion.
For years I have been asking why a pipeline hasn't been built to move water. We have areas in this country that flood every Spring and areas that have severe drought as well. There has got to be away to connect such places.
There is no true water "shortage". Whatever was on (and in) the planet since the beginning is still here. It hasn't been wasted (better said misused) and it hasn't escaped into space.
Humans can put infrastructure in place to curb the effects of drought, but humans will never get ahead of it to control it.
Current drought conditions have been experienced before in the (south)west. Dendrochronology supports this.
For those folks who build homes in flood zones and areas with no water get no sympathy from me. Why should I get upset when they chose to build in those areas. Let them pay for their water. As far as getting water from the Great Lakes is a very bad idea. The better idea is to have them move to the Great Lakes areas where there is lots of water.
Pipelining water from the Great Lakes isn't the answer. Not building where there isn't a sustainable water supply is. Isn't what is going on with the Colorado River evidence of this? What happens when water piped from the Great Lakes is no longer sufficient? Then there will be two areas of our country with water supply issues. Some areas of our country are not suitable for metropolitan development and trying to make them suitable can be disastrous in the long run.
Open Borders proves there is no water problem for Western states
Excess rain run off could be captured and piped west. But Half of the Great Lakes are “owned” by another country. They would never agree to that.
Amen Will! Sam Kinison had it figured out way back in the '80's.....................................
Look at the engineering required just to pipe water into Boston or NYC. Then imagine trying to scale that up to provide water to 'the west'. Yikes!
People plan. God laughs lol.
Spreading out the water is a great plan. Then when you run out the entire country is out of water lol. Everyone chooses where to build their nest. If you choose to nest in the desert prepare to live like you're in the desert.
Just finish the Keystone, it's not being used! :-)
Ike, good idea. we soon won’t need the oil pipelines crisscrossing the country. According to The Marxist’s So convert them to water lines.
Elevation of Lake Superior is 600 feet. The West is a little higher than that.
The water level in my well is 20’ feet in elevation below my house. I don’t think anyone is suggesting it will flow across the Rockies on its own. That said as others have stated it’s a bad idea. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I teach water law at Creighton University Law School. Much of the water demand is driven by the Endangered Species Act and an ever growing human demand in the West. One of my major themes in my class is to highlight the conflict between US immigration policy and environmental policy. One the one hand, we allow about 1.2 million new consumers into the US ever year (more recently) but still require certain river flows for the protection of species. So far irrigated agriculture has paid most of the price of those conflicting policies but sooner or later, Congress will be forced to make a choice . . .
Do not get the government involved in moving water. It’s far to complicated for the people that would manage it. And soon as you get more water in the drier states, guess what, more people will move there and strain the supply of water. Let nature and common sense sort it out.
I’m working on a desalination project in Chile. Big RO plant at sea level then pumping it 4000 meters and 200 kilometers up to the mine. Insane cost but the rules and lack of water due to the mining being in one of the driest areas on earth (Atacama desert) mean no water, no mine…
The SW US is in a continuous state of drought with internet damp spells… Been going on like that for thousands of years and has led to many areas being populated and then those populations leaving because of lack of water.
Government programs are definitely not the answer and will most likely cause more water woes than they solve… at least if history is any indication.
There were no palms in Palm Springs until water was made unnaturally available. Same for people in many areas. Previously inhabitable areas may soon return to being just that. Except for Disney and Hollywood where fantasy is real, much of California will be without sufficient water or power to sustain normal life.
Another aspect of water shortages kept in the closet. The water being pumped out of the ground is coming from aquifers that were formed at the end of the last ice age when the two mile thick ice sheets melted. NO water is going back into them today. When there dried up, that's it.
Juspassin, there is the same amount of water on this planet, as there was millions of years ago. It might be in different locations. And aquifers do replenish, but maybe not as fast as they’re being depleted.
Why the hell should we send water from the Columbia to lake Mead az guy ?
“Why the hell should we send water from the Columbia to lake Mead az guy ?”
Good question. And I thought az was moving to Russia to be with his hero president anyway. Lots of water there.
Perhaps the problem is too many humans?
Last night news, it showed how they drew down the Flaming Gorge in Utah, 12 feet. They are diverting water, from the Green, to the Colorado. The fishermen and buisness dont like that, but the rafters in Colorado do. The Colorado guys dont like the idea of filling hot tubs in Hollywood, and in between is the agriculture needs...............
I fished that Green River in the 70's, nice water, pretty country.....
"They are diverting water, from the Green, to the Colorado."
Why would they do that? The Green R. flows into the Colorado, and the confluence is ABOVE the major reservoirs impounding water needed in the SW.
Not obvious to me. AZ has plenty of their own water, they just need to recycle it like the Space Station. Enjoy drinking your own pee.
Not obvious to me either…..you wanna live in a dry climate get used to water deficiencies.
Beautiful thing about living in the Pacific NW…plenty of water !
While our elected officials waste out money and their time. On show boating hearing.
The May 24, 2022 U.S. Drought Monitor indicated that southwestern Kansas was in either Extreme Drought (D3) or Exceptional Drought (D4). The typical response from a commodity production standpoint is to pump more irrigation water from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigating crops, pastures and hay fields.
But more irrigating adds to the drawing down of the aquifer. On average, about 2.5 billion gallons of water are pumped out of the Ogallala Aquifer a day in Kansas; from 80 to 90% of that volume goes to irrigation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Ogallala Aquifer in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas has already declined by more than 150 feet since pumping for irrigation began during the mid-20th century.
Individual property rights versus the preservation of a shrinking resource will loom over this portion of the Southern Plains throughout the balance of this crop year and likely longer. And recharge will not happen quickly. A report by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture projects that replenishing the Ogallala Aquifer would take 6,000 years at the current rate of use.
Water doesn't just magically "disappear" and there is no drying up and that's it.
It goes somewhere. Thermodynamics says so...
While our elected officials waste out money and their time. On show boating hearing.
The May 24, 2022 U.S. Drought Monitor indicated that southwestern Kansas was in either Extreme Drought (D3) or Exceptional Drought (D4). The typical response from a commodity production standpoint is to pump more irrigation water from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigating crops, pastures and hay fields.
But more irrigating adds to the drawing down of the aquifer. On average, about 2.5 billion gallons of water are pumped out of the Ogallala Aquifer a day in Kansas; from 80 to 90% of that volume goes to irrigation, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The Ogallala Aquifer in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas has already declined by more than 150 feet since pumping for irrigation began during the mid-20th century.
Individual property rights versus the preservation of a shrinking resource will loom over this portion of the Southern Plains throughout the balance of this crop year and likely longer. And recharge will not happen quickly. A report by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture projects that replenishing the Ogallala Aquifer would take 6,000 years at the current rate of use.
There’s an old saying out here: In the West, water flows uphill to money.
The biggest problem is people. They build in semi arid areas and then try to make them a tropical paradise. I grew up in Dallas Texas and couldn’t believe all the swimming pools and water pumped onto lawns not to mention building a canals to give ambiance to shopping areas. They’ll run out of water there and then want to be “rescued” by taking water from somewhere else. Nope.
The Great Lakes Compact will not pipe water out to other states, Texas tried that back in the early 80s draught and that is when the Compact was formed. Desalination plants from the Baja and Pacific coast can help, Saudis and Pakistan are doing it, graphine technology can greatly increase clean water. The smart answer is to limit population in arid states. Just north of Phoenix they are building 4000 homes for a new computer chip factory, water is limited and just going to cause more of a drain on the water. Have brother living near where the new plant is going and he is paying about $350 per mo. for water, a Canadian Co. owns the water delivery process. As my grandad said back in the 50s, there will be a day when people will be paying a high price for water, a visionary.
Simple- just make sure these areas like Los Angeles produce their own water to support development…instead of taking it from somewhere else.
Simple ain't the same as easy. LA has millions of voters, who will vote themselves the right to take water from elsewhere. Ditto for every big urban area.
The geniuses in the southern part of my state, to wit, Las Vegas, are keeping their foot on the gas when it comes to allowing more people to move in and bringing in more casinos. They then whine and cry about the lack of water. There was about a 10 year battle to pipe water from the Northern part of the state to the south. That finally got tabled but I don't think it's over. The Southern Nevada Water Authority has a lot of money and power. They were buying up ranches and water rights in the northern part of the state from what I am hearing. Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at their lowest levels ever. The Colorado River is not keeping up. Nevada is the driest state in the US. Why they keep bringing in more residents escapes me.
LA voters give themselves the "right" to upstream water? Hardly. How are they going to "take" it?
A small tribe of 2,000 members upstream of LA will trump those millions of voters every day of the week and twice on Sundays...
The "over population" problem is getting ready to correct itself. Most Boomers will be gone in 20 years.
Sorry if this offends, but it is what it is.
I live in the southern San Joaquin valley. Huge agricultural area. Fruit , nuts , veggies, milk etc. Literally the land of milk and honey. Water is super important and always in short supply. The state sends over half the water stored in reservoirs out the delta for environmental purposes. It’s ridiculous. I can only water two days a week. The water table is shrinking, but they are putting in houses everywhere on the most fertile ag land in the world.
It’s political malpractice that there has not been a national infrastructure project to capture excess moisture. Snow, Ice run off, and rain in the east in reservoirs and pipe it west like oil. Rivers that flood in the east could be temporarily diverted and captured. Of course it would take a lot of eastern land to store it. But hey call them stocked fishing reservoirs Private industry could do it for huge profits. But there is the rub. It would be seen as a vital resource and would soon be seized by Imminent Domain. So no one would ever risk it.
So it would need to be the Feds. Of course the most powerful politicians are far too busy with far more important things. 2022 hot topic. bad orange man.
Are you familiar with the history of any reservoirs in the east? There are still bad feelings around the building of Quabbin Reservoir in central Mass. 80-90 years ago. Four towns destroyed so Boston could grow and guzzle. Similar stories for the reservoirs that feed NYC.
Cheaper to pipe it from the Great Lakes - and good luck negotiating that with Canada!
Dana, your correct there is risk. But unless we start limiting the number of children people can have. And let’s not forget the current 300k per month walking across the southern border, right into the region that can’t handle more people.
Something needs to be started before it’s grown the mass exodus from the SW stage.
^^^ China did that and now their economy is getting ready to collapse from a shortage of labor because it worked too well, Russia did the same thing just after the end of the USSR.
As I stated earlier, the so-called over population will soon self correct when the Boomers check out...
Lot of factors.
One I read about was basically the usa way overestimated how much water they could collect in western areas/basins when they did their studies in 40s/50s. That's just based on land geography. They misread how much the land would collect/funnel. They also based it on an unusually wet 10 year period.
So...
Misestimate of the land + not as wet as they thought + lots of people + global warming = things are going to run out of water.
When push comes to shove laws and regulations will be ignored and those further upstream will fair better than those who are lower. Phoenix you are screwed either way
"I can only water two days a week."
Therein lies a significant problem. People irrigating for lawns and decoration. If it doesn't grow naturally where you live, don't plant it.
Farmers also need to use more efficient methods of irrigation. Too much of what they shoot into the air just evaporates. Large impoundments in the desert also loose water to evaporation, especially as the atmosphere continues to warm.
There is a human population correction coming, but it has nothing to do with baby boomers. We may already see the signs of it, but it's the young that are really screwed.
Hah, there's still bad feeling where I live from building a flood control lake so people at the Lake of the Ozarks could build houses right on the lake edge.
It's destroyed our river habitats and flood plains with massive flooding and silting. It destroyed thousands of acres of good bottom farmland. And it's reverting to a river with the silting process. Also, when they did it, the Corps of Engineers bought up many thousands of acres of land. It's public, fine. But they don't do a damn thing with it. They don't manage it.
They also bought flood control easements on the river edges that stayed private. So the landowners can't build a structure, or basically do anything. You have to have permission to scrape out a duck lake.
There's a LOT of bad feeling about it where I live, and they built the dam in the 70s. Country people don't forget :)
When water is held in huge amounts in certain areas, that water has to come from somewhere. Three Gorges dam and to a lesser extent the Aswan dam are holding back huge amounts of water. The shoe may be on the other foot for these impoundments in the future, but right now the desert in Nevada and Arizona is acting like a desert.
When you wake up in the morning in KY to 100% humidity you know this is a problem you will never have to worry about.
we here in the great lakes would love to send you some water. first, you will need to buy non resident preference points at ridiculously high prices, then maybe after 50-60 years you will have enough points to be successful in drawing for some. in addition, the resident quota will be set at 99.99% residents, 01% NR. i mean, its only fair, we own the water. right? sound familiar?
I like it GDX from a guy who grew up on Lake Superior;)
“Juspassin, there is the same amount of water on this planet, as there was millions of years ago. It might be in different locations.”
Yep. Like the oceans, mainly. Pump it outta the ground, let the crops pump it back into the air…. Whatever doesn’t just evaporate in the process…
And it’s not accumulating at the poles, nor in the high-elevations…. Nor in the reservoirs…..
So.
Where I live North west of Sacramento my town has dropped 2 ft in elevation, just to much water being pumped out of the ground ,once that ground space that held the water is gone it’s gone .
We have lots to share with you... no preference points needed!
Even with all the major floods we have had and are still experiencing, we have not broken the 1950 flood levels. Its not climate change but a cycle...
Winnipeg 1966...
Winnipeg 1966...
I grew up in Winnipeg, Western Canada. I was 5 years old when this picture was taken. I have yet to experience again, the level of snowfall we had in 1966. The young generation always thinks the sky is falling in when a bad spell of weather comes along. On this day in 66' all us kids thought about were snow forts, now, if it happens again, they think they are about to die!!They just need to talk to the elders about the past. Major drought last year, major flooding this year. It will always equal out in the end.
I like the idea CDX. It’s all about where you chose to live. Doesn’t matter whether it’s hunting opportunities or the water table. It’s gotta go both ways. So, not one penny should be collected from anyone outside of those areas, to support one person who chooses to live in one of these dry places. It’s fair.
" the resident quota will be set at 99.99% residents, 01% NR"
What state is this in reference to?
"So, not one penny should be collected from anyone outside of those areas, to support one person who chooses to live in one of these dry places. It’s fair."
Of course that means no disaster relief of ANY kind. Not for fires, floods, droughts, tornados, hurricanes, etc. You make your choice and live/cope with the consequences.
"There is a human population correction coming, but it has nothing to do with baby boomers."
Yes Ziek, it does. The boomer generation is the largest in the last 100 years. Their patents are all but completely gone and then they are next. Gen X, Millinials, and now Gen Z are each smaller than its predecessor with each being more urbanized than each of their parents.
The ones who have consumed the most land and resources because of massed wealth are the boomers. Most of the other younger generations don't have two homes, large yards, or elaborate landscaping. They also don't have motorhomes that consume thousands of gallons of diesel has they travel coast to coast. Boomers are continuing to consume resources along with everyone else with no contribution to output.
Boomers were and are the largest consumers of "stuff", and to make that stuff uses resources, including water...
"...with no contribution to output."
Really? If we're such large consumers, we must be responsible for a lot of jobs for those still in the work force.
There are more millennials in the USA than there are Gen X, but besides that, I generally agree with all that.
Disasters are different. Only a person irritated would confuse the two as you have.
I’ll pick what I want because I can. I never have or will ask for your approval on anything. Especially not on people building in areas that don’t have water.
I could care less where people choose to live. But, there are pro’s and con’s to everyone’s choice to do so.
