4 ms·

No. The Great Lakes are not leaving the Great Lakes area. Ever.

01100011 5y ago
What does this even mean? What does a national water grid have to do with the Great Lakes? Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"? If you look at a map you'll notice that there is quite a lot of water available beyond the great lakes. Is there a reason freshwater can't be pulled from the mouths of great rivers like the St. Lawrence, the Columbia, and the Mississippi right before it reaches the sea? Is there a reason why flood control systems can't be built to sequester excess precipitation so that it can be reclaimed?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  It would be extremely energy intensive to push water from sea level to upland farms, basically you'd be running hydro plants in reverse.
  - 01100011 5y ago
    Desalination is also energy intensive. Shipping food from foreign countries is energy intensive. Starving because those countries also experience the effects of global warming and decide to feed their populations first is economically and socially expensive. Choose your costs. You're going to spend energy one way or another, or you're going to sacrifice your quality of life(or potentially your life). I don't see this as being a convincing argument against a nationwide hydro grid, just one of many tradeoffs.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      How about the argument that it’s completely unnecessary? Such a grid exists, they’re called rivers. We just happened to fuck it up and put the most water-hungry farms far away from the rivers.
      - 01100011 5y ago
        The places with the most sunshine and some of the most fertile land happen to be far away from places with rivers. The rivers are not a grid and we can't pull anything close to the full flow of the river for our uses without serious agricultural consequences. A national(or international) water grid allows us to distribute our impact on regional water supplies.
- selectodude 5y ago
  >Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"? Yes, very much so. So much, in fact, that there's a multinational treaty that says water in the Great Lakes cannot leave the Great Lakes watershed. It contains 90 percent of North America's freshwater. If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact
  - 01100011 5y ago
    > If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look. Can you explain this statement, because it doesn't make much sense to me. Are you saying that if we take some water from the watershed, there is therefore no other place to obtain water?
mastax 5y ago
I was just up around Lake Superior and there were lots of signs protesting someone wanting to sell bottled water from a well on their land near Lake Superior. I doubt that an individual's bespoke bottled water company could ever make a significant difference to anything, and the campaign's energy could be better spent on numerous other issues affecting the lake. However, it illustrates how protective people are of the lake water which I think is a good thing. Our governments already spend absurd amounts of money subsidizing the property values of people who live in flood plains, in deserts, etc. It will be painful but the longer we spend trying to bandage the issue the harder it will be once it reaches the breaking point.

What does this even mean? What does a national water grid have to do with the Great Lakes? Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"? If you look at a map you'll notice that there is quite a lot of water available beyond the great lakes. Is there a reason freshwater can't be pulled from the mouths of great rivers like the St. Lawrence, the Columbia, and the Mississippi right before it reaches the sea? Is there a reason why flood control systems can't be built to sequester excess precipitation so that it can be reclaimed?

thehappypm 5y ago
It would be extremely energy intensive to push water from sea level to upland farms, basically you'd be running hydro plants in reverse.
- 01100011 5y ago
  Desalination is also energy intensive. Shipping food from foreign countries is energy intensive. Starving because those countries also experience the effects of global warming and decide to feed their populations first is economically and socially expensive. Choose your costs. You're going to spend energy one way or another, or you're going to sacrifice your quality of life(or potentially your life). I don't see this as being a convincing argument against a nationwide hydro grid, just one of many tradeoffs.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    How about the argument that it’s completely unnecessary? Such a grid exists, they’re called rivers. We just happened to fuck it up and put the most water-hungry farms far away from the rivers.
    - 01100011 5y ago
      The places with the most sunshine and some of the most fertile land happen to be far away from places with rivers. The rivers are not a grid and we can't pull anything close to the full flow of the river for our uses without serious agricultural consequences. A national(or international) water grid allows us to distribute our impact on regional water supplies.
selectodude 5y ago
>Is there some sort of regional paranoia that the rest of the country is coming for "your water"? Yes, very much so. So much, in fact, that there's a multinational treaty that says water in the Great Lakes cannot leave the Great Lakes watershed. It contains 90 percent of North America's freshwater. If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Compact
- 01100011 5y ago
  > If other places start coming for water from outside, there's really nowhere else to look. Can you explain this statement, because it doesn't make much sense to me. Are you saying that if we take some water from the watershed, there is therefore no other place to obtain water?

mastax 5y ago

I was just up around Lake Superior and there were lots of signs protesting someone wanting to sell bottled water from a well on their land near Lake Superior. I doubt that an individual's bespoke bottled water company could ever make a significant difference to anything, and the campaign's energy could be better spent on numerous other issues affecting the lake. However, it illustrates how protective people are of the lake water which I think is a good thing. Our governments already spend absurd amounts of money subsidizing the property values of people who live in flood plains, in deserts, etc. It will be painful but the longer we spend trying to bandage the issue the harder it will be once it reaches the breaking point.