The Most Bizarre Effects of a Megadrought (gizmodo.com.au) 276
Gizmodo writes that "The western and southwestern U.S. is wilting under the biggest drought in 1,200 years — a megadrought..."
"But the longer the West's dry spell goes on, the more bizarre the drought-related stories get." Some examples? Long-sunken history and even evidence of past crimes are emerging from the receding waters. First, a barrel containing a body showed up in Lake Mead. Less than a week later, separate skeletal remains surfaced. Elsewhere where droughts are occurring, similar stories are popping up. As the drought progresses, police forecast that more human remains and other lost items are likely to continue to show up.
And last month the New York Times warned that Utah's Great Salt Lake had already shrunk by two-thirds, and now faced "an environmental nuclear bomb." Now Gizmodo reports that the state's legislators are "considering a truly wacky idea to keep the body of water going." Utah lawmakers floated the idea of a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to the landlocked state during a meeting in May. "There's a lot of water in the ocean, and we have very little in the Great Salt Lake," Sen. David Hinkins (R), the commission's co-chair, said during the meeting.
The Pacific Ocean is, at minimum, about 966 km [600 miles] and a mountain range away from the Great Salt Lake. Though, experts previously told Gizmodo that the idea of a pipeline wasn't totally surprising or out of the question. The saline lake supports lots of Utah industries, including tourism, brine shrimp harvesting, and mineral extraction. So there are strong financial incentives for the state to try to preserve the lake.
"But the longer the West's dry spell goes on, the more bizarre the drought-related stories get." Some examples? Long-sunken history and even evidence of past crimes are emerging from the receding waters. First, a barrel containing a body showed up in Lake Mead. Less than a week later, separate skeletal remains surfaced. Elsewhere where droughts are occurring, similar stories are popping up. As the drought progresses, police forecast that more human remains and other lost items are likely to continue to show up.
And last month the New York Times warned that Utah's Great Salt Lake had already shrunk by two-thirds, and now faced "an environmental nuclear bomb." Now Gizmodo reports that the state's legislators are "considering a truly wacky idea to keep the body of water going." Utah lawmakers floated the idea of a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to the landlocked state during a meeting in May. "There's a lot of water in the ocean, and we have very little in the Great Salt Lake," Sen. David Hinkins (R), the commission's co-chair, said during the meeting.
The Pacific Ocean is, at minimum, about 966 km [600 miles] and a mountain range away from the Great Salt Lake. Though, experts previously told Gizmodo that the idea of a pipeline wasn't totally surprising or out of the question. The saline lake supports lots of Utah industries, including tourism, brine shrimp harvesting, and mineral extraction. So there are strong financial incentives for the state to try to preserve the lake.
uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Informative)
and 5000 feet of elevation
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Hey, politicians don't have to pass an IQ test before they can run. It was a good try though for the dude.
I'm surprised he didn't say that they should pray harder so God would fix the problem for them.
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, politicians don't have to pass an IQ test before they can run.
Nor should they.
But, in the interest of full disclosure, their IQ should be printed on the ballot.
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing the average voter, they go for the one with the lowest numbers.
For reference, see the outcome of the past couple elections.
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True, true... the system is fucked as well. The US, self-proclaimed pinnacle of progress, has an election system that might have made sense 200 years ago but hasn't for at least 100.
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:4, Insightful)
IQ is meaningless. There are MDs who do not believe vaccinations save lives. Hell, even one senator opted to create his own Ophthalmology board in Tenn. because he couldn't get by a real one to get certified, e.g., Sen. Rand Paul. Hiis intelligence is almost but not quite as impressive as Sen. Marsha Blackburn from the same state. Must be something in the water.
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IQ is meaningless. There are MDs who do not believe vaccinations save lives.
Those two remarks are connected. Can you see how?
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So did I. Turns out the result is invalid because some of the values are off the scale. The test is good for normal people, not the crazy ones.
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Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, politicians don't have to pass an IQ test before they can run. It was a good try though for the dude.
While you're criticising politicians for being stupid, would you like to calculate the frictional losses in an 800mile pipeline and compare it to the additional 150bar loss resulting from the 5000ft of head pressure?
When you're done with the numbers I'm sure you can find some humble pie at your local starbucks.
Hint: The elevation is completely insignificant.
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed. But unless you assume it's a garden hose and add numbers for typical pipelines of that length, the question ultimately is, is the head pressure one or two magnitudes lower than frictional losses.
5000ft over 800 miles is not significant in the slightest for any kind of reasonable pipeline design.
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Clearly, since the most direct action the Governor of Utah could come up with in order to mitigate the problem was for people to pray for rain.
How about sensible policy changes limiting water use when you live in a fucking desert and are incentivizing high-growth?
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:5, Interesting)
And a good chance to fuck up the GSL for good.
I don't know for how long the Salt Lake was cut off from the sea, but I think it's safe to say for really, really, really long. Long enough for it to create its own biome. Now you introduce water, along with its various living things, great and small, from the sea.
Now what could possibly go wrong?
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They will have to filter the larger stuff, it's the micro organisms that will be the problem.
But hey, this affects someone's profits, so such considerations are secondary.
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If they just need it for irrigation, just use that water directly instead of pumping it into the Lake. Less damage.
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Irrigation? It's called the Great Salt Lake for a reason.
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I'm no expert but isn't salt bad for plants?
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The Salt Lake itself still gets water from somewhere. There's three main rivers that supply it, all of them with considerable mineral content, but still acceptable. The lake itself is fairly shallow (5m deep on average) with a considerable surface, which also explains its high mineral content: The water evaporates, the minerals stay.
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Sure, but aren't we talking about using sea water directly for irrigation? Or did I lose the thread?
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I think we managed to talk past each other, I was talking about the current irrigation and the reason why the lake dries up. Yes, salt water from the sea would of course not work for irrigation, but if you transport it for a thousand kilometers, I guess desalinization somewhere in between would be possible.
Not to mention that I bet that they will irrigate from the rivers while pumping the sea water into the lake. Else the farmers might have to pay for the water because that pipeline sure isn't free but the
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Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.
Re: uh... 800 miles (Score:3)
Re:uh... 800 miles (Score:4, Informative)
Someone mentioned irrigation for some reason, even though the brine in the Great Salt Lake is absolutely not used for that because the salinity would kill the crops. However, part of the problem is that the three rivers that fill the Great Salt Lake with fresh water from melting snow pack are being drained for irrigation and wild growth of the urban areas in the Wasatch Front.
Because of this, there's a couple of really bad things queued up to happen: "brine shrimp" numbers may collapse triggering a looming ecological crisis if the brine shrimp and brine flies die, because the lake is a huge stopping point for migratory birds. If the brine shrimp and flies die off, then the birds that fly through there will largely die off.
Oh, and there's another massive ecological concern: now that the lake is at its lowest level in recorded history, there's lots of freshly drying up lake bed that is rich in heavy metals, which turns into toxic dust blowing right into the cities along the Wasatch Front [deseret.com]. So not only have we started diverting the fresh water that comes out of the mountains and replenishes the lake until the lake ecology is threatened with severe damage, if not total collapse; we've managed to threaten the local human population with elevated cancer rates resulting from the last hundred years or so of mining operations in the area.
And the Governor of Utah's plan? Pray for rain. [utah.gov]. Don't conserve water. Don't change policy to limit growth to not overuse available resources. Don't attempt to solve the issue in any way. Just pray.
Re: uh... 800 miles (Score:3)
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But hey, this affects someone's profits, so such considerations are secondary.
Naturally, the people whose profits are threatened will pay all the costs of the scheme. Right?
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Hey, lets not say bad things about the "Job Creators" alright.
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Here is a page [wswrp.com] that at least talks a bit about the technical aspects of this, and mentions some interesting effects like "lake effect snow" in the Watsatch Mountains, which sounds like some moisture gets naturally "desalinated" and made available to nature and humans. Some discussion of how the water is to be managed is provided.
A seawater pipeline should be quite feasible, it really is just "engineering and paying the bills". Only real questions are rights of away, cost, a serious evaluation of risks and
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That sounds scary but it's only 150bar head-pressure. Absolutely insignificant in comparison to the frictional losses through such a pipeline which are one or possibly even 2 orders of magnitude higher depending on line size and flow rate.
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Re: uh... 800 miles (Score:2)
150 bar + friction for a single pump pushing all the way up, but wouldn't they have many booster stations along the way so each pump only has to supply a fraction of the total head?
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Correct. You're looking at multiple thousand bar of losses over the length. Even if there wasn't a height difference you need booster pumps all along the length, just like any pipeline. The 150 is insignificant.
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Sometimes I have the feeling R politicians are in a secret contest only known to them who can come up with the most stupidest, weird or costliest solution to a problem, or rather, non-solution to a problem which their voters will enthusiastically , that could be solved easier, cheaper and more effective by other means.
Hey, dipshot, how about supporting measures against climate change??!?!?
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E-verify is used, often the illegal immigrants commit identity theft to get around it, and the verification comes back. But keep believing in that, I am sure it will work sometime soon.
So mandatory e-verify wont solve the problem 100% so it shouldnt be done altogether? Meanwhile you favor a multibillion dollar wall that sure as hell wont solve all of our illegal immigrant problems? You're being ridiculous. It's pretty pathetic that fiscal conservatism has been so thoroughly abandoned by Republicans in this country in favor of grand showy virtue signaling.
In a world where thousands die every year crossing an entire major sea like the Mediterranean to illegally immigrate to Europe https://w [statista.com]
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With pumps that can lift about 100m you only need 15 stages to lift the water, and 800 miles is plenty of space to spread them out.
Of course the rest of the plan is bonkers.
The GSL isn't going to be a nuclear bomb (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the salt flats are pretty much the same thing, and have a much wider area than the GSL. There is always salt blowing in and coating cars with salt in dust in utah. In the 70's you could get storms that would coat cars with more than a quarter inch of dust and salt when it rained. You might get more dust. The downside is no lake effect snow, that would be a disaster.
Water misuse (Score:5, Interesting)
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Self-Inflicted? Look at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu], notice all the brown and red? That's goddamn big drought. And as the article mentions, the drought is now 22 yrs old. How long does a drought have to be before it becomes the new normal.
Re:Water misuse (Score:4, Informative)
(I know the topic is Utah, but vis-a-vis megadrought, this still seems apropos)
NY Time article "In California, a Wet Era May Be Ending" indicates that the last 150 years (i.e., since about California statehood) has been unusually wet, and that current conditions are essentially a reversion to the norm:
"Equally as important but much easier to forget is that we consider the last 150 years or so to be normal," he added. "But you don't have to go back very far at all to find much drier decades, and much drier centuries."
That raises the possibility that California has built its water infrastructure — indeed, its entire modern society — during a wet period.
But scientists say that in the more ancient past, California and the Southwest occasionally had even worse droughts — so-called megadroughts — that lasted decades. At least in parts of California, in two cases in the last 1,200 years, these dry spells lingered for up to two centuries.
The new normal, scientists say, may in fact be an old one.
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these are self-inflicted water crises rather than what most people think of when you say "drought."
The magnitude of the crisis is self-inflicted, but the drought itself is not. Or at least not self-inflected primarily by the residents of Utah (man-made climate change in general is self-inflicted). There is a real drought, Utah and other southwestern states simply aren't managing it well.
Re: Water misuse (Score:5, Interesting)
John Oliver is better at providing accurate and truthful information than 99.99% of shows.
It's not like watching Fox News or some other propaganda network that constantly lies , but uses finely tuned emotional manipulation to stop you from noticing all the logical fallacies and nonsense
They put in references to the sources and they normally use multiple reputable sources for the information stated or relied upon.
Like that that specific statement about Utah water uses The Salt Lake Tribune as the primary source, and they list references to secondary sources that back up the information.
And, if it turns something said was wrong or misleading, they will clarify everything on the next show after finding it out.
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We get it. You like John Oliver. He's quite entertaining and very witty. That doesn't make him more credible than "99.99% of shows". Shows? That's where you go to get your information? "Shows"?
Re: Water misuse (Score:5, Interesting)
We get it. You like John Oliver. He's quite entertaining and very witty. That doesn't make him more credible than "99.99% of shows". Shows? That's where you go to get your information? "Shows"?
If you're looking to fact check someone it's best not to focus on the obvious hyperbole.
Of course the judgment on his accuracy is hand wavy, I'm not aware of any resources that do a good job of rating the accuracy and truthfulness of shows. But the fact is that if you compare John Oliver to other news-type shows he comes out fairly well. I suspect that comes from a few factors:
1) Compared to typical news / new pundit programs John Oliver isn't just following the headlines, so he and his team have the opportunity to choose the stories where they can verify the information.
2) His ideology is closely aligned with reality, and because he's self-selecting for a relatively small but sophisticated audience, he doesn't have to twist the truth to get his point across [wikipedia.org].
3) Because of the format (and his comedic talent) he gets to spend much longer on a story than a typical program. This means he doesn't need to take the same rhetorical short cuts other shows would in order to complete the narrative of the story.
He's not perfect, but from watching one of his segments I don't think you come away with a distorted view of reality.
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I don't watch John Oliver regularly but I have a seen a few of his segments. In one he trashed an organization I am very familiar with with, he didn't provide any factual information and completely distorted what was going on and ignored all the work they do for the poor and needy just because he doesn't like their politics. I met another person who is very familiar with another situation where they said he basically lied and made up stuff about that situation.
Given what I've seen him do in situations I'm familiar with, I don't trust him. Given his track record, I would not be surprised if he misquotes or distorts whatever information sources he uses.
Is there a specific segment and organization you're referring to?
It's certainly possible there's cases where his story distorts information and misleads viewers, but it's hard to verify without an example.
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While Fox may have the highest ratings, let's not kid ourselves that the other networks like CNN, MSNBC and TYT aren't cut from exactly the same fabric, just opposite political bent.
Re: Water misuse (Score:5, Insightful)
John Oliver is not a credible source of truthful information. A quick internet search will show that it depends on how you count it. From all sources it looked like it was twelfth.
Even if you're right about Oliver being wrong, 12th is still a ridiculously high place for such a dry state.
But my own "quick internet search" led me to Statista which places Utah SECOND, not 12th
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
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John Oliver is not a credible source of truthful information.
John Oliver cites his sources in his show. And you said 12th across all sources? Holy shit that puts him way ahead of many actual news / journalist outlets in the USA alone and firmly into "credible" territory.
Re: Water misuse (Score:2)
"Leftist scum" is definitely a phrase used by high-functioning intellectuals and NOT at all an indication of brittle emotional control and marked mental retardation.
Maybe a good idea but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually think running a pipeline from the ocean inland is a pretty good idea, not just to Salt Lake City but a network of pipes running to other large cities around the western US.
However it does seem like you'd want to desalinate that water first, both to protect the equipment but also maybe adding more salt to the Salt Lake would not be a good idea for the wildlife that relies on the salinity level it has today. You could keep the lake at a more static level and use any extra water piped over to supply Salt Lake with drinking water.
You could use cheap nuclear power to desalinate and provide energy to pump the water. It would be the kind of mass scale government project I think everyone could actually support instead of fight over (well not environmentalists of course, they would never agree, but they stopped being reasonable or even taking actions to help protect the environment long ago). It would be an amazing achievement that could lead to the Greening of the west, a true Green movement to support life in even inhospitable regions, and stop or reduce the drain from underground reservoirs before disaster strikes.
Re:Maybe a good idea but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Nuclear power is not cheap. Even in France, perhaps the most nuclear friendly country in the world, their industry is deeply in debt and couldn't survive without subsidies and government loans. The plants take decades to build, for instance in China Haiyang 1 and 2 took 14 years from planning to actual production of power, uranium mining to replenish the fuel is a constant requirement and the expended fuel must be stored for generations.
Environmentalists have been trying to protect the environment for decades, they keep getting stonewalled by industry backed conservatives pumping dark money to conservative politicians to maintain the status quo when possible and to water down or poison pill any efforts that might cost them, despite all evidence pointing to disaster on the horizon.
Those "inhospitable" regions already support life, they just don't support exploitable, PROFITABLE, life that creates jobs so apparently they're not worth protecting. God forbid we can't carpet Arizona with green golf courses. Who will think of the out of work caddy's?? Honestly a lot of the Wests problems would work themselves out if we just quit trying to live there.
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Nuclear power is not cheap.
It is getting cheaper with newer technologies, the price is getting cheaper all the time...
But you know what is even less cheap? A giant city running out of water.
Environmentalists have been trying to protect the environment for decades,
Oh have they? Because if that were true they would have not blocked nuclear power for decades, and we wouldn't have had to worry about CO2 rise currently, it would be manageable to control with no coal or even natural gas plants around.
"Environm
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Re:Maybe a good idea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Environmentalists" ar the root cause of the CO2 problem we have today. Anywhere they appear, conditions for wildlife and for people get worse over time. They are the ultimate scourge of the planet. They wear the term like a skin suit while destroying all they contact. Believe them at your peril.
Whoa, hold your horses buddy. What the fuck are you talking about?
There's an anti-nuclear movement of people concerned with the safety, long-term costs and implications of nuclear power. There is some overlap with environmentalists of course.
But calling them "the scourge of the planet" is a but much when you consider all the generational damage that the oil industry and their conservative protectors like the Heartland Institute, the Republican Party and Fox News have done. These entities who have been spreading disinformation, denial and FUD about climate change for decades. Resulting in the fact that about half of Americans won't believe the science that it is real. These were literally the same people [wikipedia.org] that were trying to convince the public that smoking is actually not bad at all for your health. The US is in the sorry state that it is, not just in terms of climate protection, but in a general distrust of institutions, science or any sort of "establishment" because of these fear mongering instigators on the right. They are "the scourge of the planet".
You're wrong (Score:2)
It is getting cheaper with newer technologies, the price is getting cheaper all the time...
Bullshit. They're getting MORE expensive over time even accounting for inflation. Look at the price for the most recent plant, Watts Bar and then tell me it's getting cheaper. What is getting cheaper incrementally is solar and wind.
Re: You're wrong (Score:3)
That's because of regulatory creep. Nuclear power is already much safer than coal or natural gas. Any attempt to further regulate it is an intentionally obscured attempt to undermine nuclear power. Probably because someone is heavily invested in solar or wind.
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Wishful thinking. There are newer reactor designs that may, if things all work out, lead to reduced cost. (If you also neglect the externalities of what to do with the waste, of which there hasn't ever been a proper accounting.)
Can you point to one of these "newer technologies" plants, actually built and operating in the world, and show that it had lower cost of construction or operation?
They should still be p
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It is getting cheaper with newer technologies, the price is getting cheaper all the time...
Oh my god stop with the ignorant horseshit. We have never built a single plant for less than the cost of the one preceding it. The trend is up. You magical technology making things cheap exists in your fantasy world, completely detached from reality.
Back in reality: all current and recently finished plants have been the most expensive ever per MWH both in terms of construction and estimate life cycle cost. And those few which promised to be cheaper have suffered cost overunns by factors of about 4x.
I know y
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'their industry is deeply in debt and couldn't survive without subsidies and government loans'
ALL industries are deep in debt and can't survive without subsidies and government loans. That is how capitalism works.
If an industry was making a profit, it would use that profit to take out a massive loan with which to pay CEO dividends.
Not saying that Pinko Commie governments are any less corrupt or inefficient.
Re:Maybe a good idea but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am always disappointed by the nuclear power in France posts.
We can safely ignore renewables: nuclear power in France has for the majority of its history competed against coal directly.
Nuclear power is expensive because everyone else externalises the costs. France has saved literally hundreds of thousands of lives and contributed much less to global warming than all the surrounding countries because of nuclear. The difference is someone else paid the medical costs for coal pollution deaths and injuries and someone else will pay the exorbitant cost of global warming.
Really, we couldn't afford for everyone to not go nuclear like France, but for me, we got to borrow against the future, no money down, and there's a good chance I'll be dead before the interest payments get really nasty. My young niblings may well live in interesting times.
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Nuclear power is not cheap. Even in France, perhaps the most nuclear friendly country in the world, their industry is deeply in debt and couldn't survive without subsidies and government loans. The plants take decades to build, for instance in China Haiyang 1 and 2 took 14 years from planning to actual production of power, uranium mining to replenish the fuel is a constant requirement and the expended fuel must be stored for generations.
Jepp:
https://www.taxpayer.net/energ... [taxpayer.net]
https://www.spiegel.de/interna... [spiegel.de]
The nuclear lobby likes to produce numbers that don't contain the full equation. Such as the immense costs of dismantling a nuclear plant once its lifetime has run its course.
Re:Maybe a good idea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear in France is screwed up because of forced competition, that completely gutted EDF. Look up the NOME law. Basically a third of nuke electricity production is a forced sale at fixed rate (way under market price).
Another part of gutting the French nuclear industry was the hostile takeover of Alstom's energy subsidiary by GE. This created an incredibly inefficient multi-party nuke building system, instead of previous vertical integration.
Waste is a problem only until we decide to reprocess it, but that won't happen because civil nuclear is a side effect of military nuclear. That is why we don't have other types of reactors.
As much as I am pro nuclear, I'm not sure I want nuclear waste around left to manage when countries start collapsing...
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You could use cheap nuclear power
That would be great, but there's no such thing. If you use nuclear to provide an underpinning level of power for society and have a start-stop process for desalination and pumping, then it's actually more viable to use renewables during periods of excess production.
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You could use cheap nuclear power
That would be great, but there's no such thing.
Indeed. The latest nukes (Vogtle and Hinkley) are decades beyond schedule and way over budget.
When they (finally) start producing power, it will be more than four times the price of wind.
then it's actually more viable to use renewables during periods of excess production.
The problem is that demand is becoming more flexible, so "excess production" is happening less and less. For instance, EVs can charge when power is available. Intelligent ACs can turn off their compressors when less power is available and pre-chill when it is plentiful.
Re: Maybe a good idea but... (Score:2)
Re: Maybe a good idea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Desalination of seawater by reverse osmosis costs about $1 per cubic meter.
California farmers pay $0.07 per cubic meter for irrigation water.
Desalination makes no economic sense.
The solution to the water shortage is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
Re: Maybe a good idea but... (Score:2)
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Indeed. Even considering basic materials such as concrete and metal, cost have been skyrocketing, and we don't need *less* of that to build a new plant (quite the opposite). Furthermore, price increases are driven by new safety mechanisms that were not anticipated for older plants, such as tsunami protection and sea level rising management if built on seashore (Fukushima ftw), more technologically advanced plants are more complex which means more cost.
Then there is the risk of drought and heatwaves, nuclear
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Re:Maybe a good idea but... (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, the answer is always nuclear power... now... What's the question?
What can be relied on to over-promise and under-deliver?
Re: Maybe a good idea but... (Score:2)
Anything "green".
Re: Maybe a good idea but... (Score:2)
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Easier to spend money than tell people "no". (Score:5, Informative)
The bulk of the water being diverted away from the lake, about 80% is used in agriculture. More than half of that is being used to farm alfalfa in a desert.
Alfalfa is a water-heavy plant. Not as much as crops like almonds, but still tremendous water requirements.
There are two big problems around water rights. Many of these rights were granted a century ago or more, and polices of those old eras granted far more water than what many farmers could use today, so the allocations are weird. Second, some (but not all) of the laws around it will cause farmers to permanently forfeit their rights if they aren't used, although many of them are more sensible that if you don't capture water as it flows by you merely lost your rights to use it this year. Even so, many farmers fear (sometimes correctly) that if they don't use ALL the water they were allocated they will lose their water rights, so a significant volume of water is wasted just to preserve future rights.
The state legislature is working to resolve issues around permanent forfeiture of rights if they're not used, but still it would be far better if they could just tell people "No, there is not enough water for you to draw your water rights from, you need to stop using so much water for a few years," rather than considering spending a fortune to pipe water 500 miles away and across a mountain range.
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And what keeps them from changing those grants from "use it or lose it" to "what you don't use gives you a bonus next year, or money back"?
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The bulk of the water being diverted away from the lake, about 80% is used in agriculture. More than half of that is being used to farm alfalfa in a desert.
This is exactly the problem. The drought isn't anything particularly unusual for the area. The decline of the Great Salt Lake has more to do with overuse of the water that would otherwise flow into the lake.
There are two big problems around water rights...
Yes, and the only actual solution is to revoke those antiquated water rights, which were granted in a very different age. Start afresh: groundwater and water in rivers is a common resource. If you use that resource, you must pay a fair price for it. Suddenly, it will no longer make economic sense to rais
Re:Buy the water (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's time Americans realised that rights granted hundred of years ago may be irrelevant or even very dangerous in this century.
You're children are dying because of your silly ideas.
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Well, SCOTUS just negated a right granted 50 years ago, so things are moving in that direction.
Individuals living in (Score:2)
Re: Individuals living in (Score:2)
I also am shocked.
Humans will just have to keep increasing the population until the problem solves itself.
Not saying this is a workable solution, it is just the only thing that humans ever do.
So, other than tourism (Score:2)
Net elevation change is 4200 feet⦠(Score:3)
â¦but you have to cross multiple mountain ranges that are much higher than that to get the water there. Unless you bore tunnels through them, which would be a major expense. And then thereâ(TM)s the desalinization aspect to deal with as well.
From a technical point of view, it would be far easier to divert fresh water from the Snake River (about 200 miles north and at a similar elevation). Most of that ends up in the Columbia River and then, eventually, in the Pacific Ocean.
But Iâ(TM)m pretty sure that Idaho, Oregon, and Washington would scream bloody murderâ¦
We're back to the Salt Lake discussion (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is (as I posted a month ago), the size of the Great Salt Lake has varied significantly even during recent times.
- Back in 1873 it was 2400 square miles
- In 1963, the lake set a historic low of 950 square miles (only recently beaten)
- Then, in 1980, it was back up to a record 3300 square miles
As far as I can tell, no one has actually demonstrated this recent (and huge) decrease is not part of this natural variablility. I certainly believe it could be human-caused; but it seems to me people are just assuming that's the case without actually looking at any data. And frankly, as someone who thinks human impacts on climate are a real problem, I think this is a serious issue and makes it easier for the climate change deniers to keep pretending there isn't a problem.
Re: We're back to the Salt Lake discussion (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Just because the lake has been at extremely low levels before doesnt mean the danger of toxic dust being blown up from dry lake beds is any less significant to us right here and now.
American hubris getting its comeupance (Score:3)
Whilst all humans have fought against nature to create better standards of living for themselves and their families, America has taken this to the extreme - and will increasingly pay the price. This story and similar shortages of water for Las Vegas and LA and the Colorado river are the bill coming due. Ultimately the problem is the failure to pay the full price of the resources we are consuming; this is as true of coal and gas as it is of water. The correct solution is therefore to commit to taxing these commodities in such a way as to ensure their users pay up. Sadly we live in a democracy...
So what make them think (Score:2)
language question (Score:2)
So is "mega drought" the new word for "regional climate going back to the historical norm from the short term recent exceptionally wet period"?
Climate Change (Score:2)
Glad to see these dummies scrambling for solutions to a crisis which they helped create. When they start talking about these kinds of problems and the ridiculous and costly solutions, the press should bump up their asses with climate change questions and not let them brush it all off.
Perhaps they should all just pray to their fairytale god and ask for some rain.. thoughts and prayers are great for people gunned down after all.
I like how we're getting funny, feel good stories (Score:2)
Meanwhile while everyone's bitching about almonds, huge amounts of real staple foods like rice and
Currently visiting Denver from east coast... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Gizmodo asks...you are idiot fool, aren't you? (Score:2)