Western US States Using Up Ground Water At an Alarming Rate 377
sciencehabit (1205606) writes A new study shows that ground water in the Colorado basin is being depleted six times faster than surface water. The groundwater losses, which take thousands of years to be recharged naturally, point to the unsustainability of exploding population centers and water-intensive agriculture in the basin, which includes most of Arizona and parts of Colorado, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Because ground water feeds many of the streams and rivers in the area, more of them will run dry.
Cancerous tumor. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some time ago I remember reading about a proposal to building an aquaduct from the Snake River in Idaho to Southern California. It reminded me of the metaphor that when a cancerous tumor grows unchecked it will commadeer local blood vessels for its own use.
Why I'm on a well in a sustainable aquifer. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Peak Water (Score:5, Interesting)
US military does periodic defense reviews and the ones i saw back in the late 90's predicted wars over water shortages
Re:ALL RIGHT! (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the fun things about Seattle is we actually own the entire watershed here. All of it. So the suburbs basically have no water rights.
They either buy it from us at a premium to what our citizens (who own it) pay or they buy it from someone else (at a higher premium since it has to be trucked in).
Capiche?
Re:Colorado has California over a barrel (Score:3, Interesting)
The water in the great lakes are already starting to drop. The great lakes consortium states would do just about everything to stop other states from coming in and taking their water. It would be the equivalent of Wisconsin trying to forcibly move all the wealth of silicon valley to green bay.
Lumping everyone together.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I really hate when they lump everyone together. The fastest draining aquifer is the Ogallala, which is in the middle of the country, not the west. What this article claims is absolutely not true in 99% of the areas included in that list of states. My state, Utah has one of the most highly regulated water systems in probably the world. We have strict regulations on wells and draw rates that are reviewed and approved by state regulators that will halt all pumping if they detect subsidence in the aquifer. The aquifers are almost uniformly carefully monitored to ensure water levels don't drop, and in some areas near the salt lake they monitor to ensure positive pressure into the lake is maintained so salt water isn't sucked back into the fresh water.
Yes there are bad situations out there, Las Vegas and Phoenix are terribly managed water systems IMO, favoring growth over conservation. We shouldn't have 6 million people living in a desert that can barely naturally support 1/10 that many. And pumping several hundred thousand acre feet of water over a mountain range for Phoenix is a terrible waste of water, not to mention the water lost to evaporation in the process and the power used.
But this blanket inclusion of all the western states in this indictment is stupid. Those of us with scarce water resources have carefully managed them for the most part. Utah's been managing water use far longer than most states because it's a scarce commodity and always has been. There is a river in Utah where every single drop is used 7 times before discharge into the Salt Lake and the river isn't very long.
If you want to talk about water misuse, talk about the areas misusing water and stop lumping the rest of us in with them.
Re:Should the United States accept more foreigners (Score:1, Interesting)
Poverty does not cause obesity. It causes unhealthy diets which can cause obesity. Stay home and eat a 7 dollar lean steak or a 12 dollar healthy omega3 rich fish fillet with about 4 dollars in trimmings or get filled up with a 6 dollar super sized big mac meal and not have to fix the crap. Fill up between meals by snacking on 6 dollar nuts or have a 3 for a dollar twinky. These are choices not limited to the poor. But the better off have a more easy time not making them.
There are even some people who think the problem with obesity is solely contained within our switch from real sugar to high fructose corn syrup in the 1970s. They make convincing arguments if the arguments are factual. I have never had the time to bother checking them. A lot of obese people get thin also when they go gluten free. I think it has a lot to do with food containing gluten also having HFCS in them but that's just a guess.
I also wouldn't say Reagan or Thatcher's economic policies were disastrous. In the US, Carter's policies likely were worse. They certainly threw a lot more people into poverty than when Reagan was president. But I'm sure you will spout some half cocked theories that don't line up with reality so I'm not bothering with it. I do agree that illegals will increase the obesity rates, but not because of poverty- because they will make the same poor food choices and be subjected to the mass marketing that many Americans already are.
Re:Better late than never, Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
People have been talking about this ever since (and likely before) T Boone Pickens stole the water in western TX.
Texas has uniquely dumb laws that let you suck up whatever water is underneath your land.
So if you own a couple acres on the edge of a giant underground reservoir that spans several counties, you are allowed to drain the entire reservoir from your property.
Texas tried to mitigate this by allowing for local water boards, but they get bullied/sued if they don't allow the resource extraction.
Read more here: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/who-stole-the-water-20140623 [mensjournal.com]
Re:Colorado has California over a barrel (Score:3, Interesting)
And yet you have farm, home, and cottage owners living near the shore of Lake Manitoba in the province of Manitoba screaming about the lake getting too much water from the Portage Diversion due to all the recent flooding [google.ca].
If all the excess flood water could be piped South to thirsty states every spring that would likely make more than just the Lake Manitoba residents happy. Heck, the capital of Winnipeg has a floodway designed to prevent the city from becoming the center of a lake (check out a satellite image [umanitoba.ca] south of the city 1997)
Re:Peak Water (Score:2, Interesting)
The ironic bit is we will poison the local well water via fracking for gas, so we can have "cheap" oil to fight for farther distant oil fields.
Fracking doesn't poison ground water*, but disregarding that piece of mis-information, and assuming it to be true; we have technology for water purification and if it takes less energy and costs less to decontaminate the water for the few people affected than the large value and energy from frack-gas, then it totally makes sense to carry on, and for the frackers to supply the people affected with water purification systems.
You can take water, add cyanide (or arsenic, or barium sulfate, or whatever), remove the cyanide, and drink the water with no ill effects. Poisoned or contaminated ground water is not really a big deal when you have access to technology and energy to operate that technology. In fact in a lot of places the ground water is naturally poisonous.
* The chemicals used in fracking are detergents, they probably don't taste good, but they aren't poisonous. Fracking is also not done to the water table, but far below the water table to fossil water which is often poisonous due to contamination with arsenic, uranium and other heavy metals. One possible way that fracking can poison ground water is if the casing supplying fracking pressure to the well breaks leaching poisonous fossil water into the water table, though I don't know of any instances of this actually occuring.