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Colorado River drops to record low levels, slashing Arizona’s water supply
- sabareesh 5y agoI wonder if it is possible to link Colorado and Missisipi river
- lucasmullens 5y agoWhat? There's multiple full states in the way. What would that even accomplish?
- NortySpock 5y agoAlso a whole mountain range. It's like the grandparent poster forgot both to look at a map and that water runs downhill.
- paulcole 5y agothose are trivial implementation details
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago/s? If not, your definition of "trivial" is... unusual. The technology needed actually is trivial. The cost, on the other hand, is very much non-trivial.
- paulcole 5y agoLike Archimedes said, "Give me scrum points and a long enough sprint planning meeting and I can move the world."
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...
- zwieback 5y agowould be nice but kind of a big project: https://i.redd.it/igp7056s4a361.jpg https://i.redd.it/igp7056s4a361.jpg
- api 5y agoIt would probably be easier given the geography to build pipelines or canals from the Northwest or Canada.
- jzawodn 5y agoIf we can do it for oil, why not water?
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThat's how NYC gets its water.
- xyzzyz 5y agoYes, and their most recent water pipeline costs $6B and is going to take 50+ years to build. Not exactly practical for any place that’s not NYC.
- bluGill 5y agoGiven the way transport costs so much, I'd expect other English speaking countries could do it in 20 years for $4B, non-English speaking in 10 for $2.5B, down to Spain in 3 years for $.8B.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThey get it from places that are an hour's drive away, not from an entirely different watershed.
- xyzzyz 5y agoBecause oil is 3+ orders of magnitude more valuable than water, and we use 4 orders of magnitude more water than oil.
- cronix 5y agoNW is running low as well, so don't count on it. We're getting less snow each year, so the spring/summer melts aren't contributing nearly as much as it used to. I've been to about 20 different reservoirs (I like to fly drones there) around the state in recent weeks, and they are all way below average. Some places they're having to remove the docked boats or they'll be sitting on dirt and rocks soon. > The area has struggled with water scarcity for years – but this year has been unlike any other. Amid a historic drought, in May the federal government cut off all irrigation to farmers for the first time in more than a century, in an effort to conserve water for the endangered fish that also share this landscape. The move sparked fear and concern among farmers, some of whom have protested the decision, and put an already challenging way of life in doubt. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/drought-western-us-family-farms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/drought-... > The couple's well is among potentially hundreds that have dried up in recent weeks in an area near the Oregon-California border suffering through a historic drought, leaving homes with no running water just a few months after the federal government shut off irrigation to hundreds of the region's farmers for the first time ever. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/survive-wells-dry-amid-oregon-water-woes-79140502 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/survive-wells-dr... This water problem isn't happening in a vacuum.
- allturtles 5y agoThere actually is a pump + tunnel system connecting the Colorado and Mississippi river systems, though it runs the other way around, bringing water from the Colorado river drainage across the mountains to the east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_B._Adams_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_B._Adams_Tunnel The problem is that even once you cross the mountains to the Mississippi catchment, there isn't much water on the east side for hundreds of miles. If you wanted to get water from the Mississippi River itself all the way west to the Rockies, you'd have to pump it about a mile uphill just to get it to the Denver area.
- asaddhamani 5y agoIt seems like every day there is a new catastrophe directly or indirectly linked to our climate crisis. COvid has shown us that things can be happening right in front of peoples faces and they will still not do the right thing. We are supposed to be in an ice age currently and some reading on Wikipedia suggested that while the earth will recover without human presence, the next few glacial periods will be skipped.
- sparker72678 5y agoIt’s well past time to drive out farming of water-intensive crops in the state.
- hamburgerwah 5y agoArizona has a policy of maintaining 100+ years of water (and all new construction must demonstrate that). The phoenix metro area has the most responsible and thoughtful water management policies of any major american city and is a net contributor to ground water. What arizona gets from the colorado river is icing and a literal drop in it's well managed supplies. Arizona was preparing for this possible outcome in the early 1980's. It's a total non event for the state. Save your outrage for the cities on our coasts whose antiquated and poorly managed treatment systems dump millions of gallons of untreated sewage into our rivers and oceans.
- Keyframe 5y agoWhat does it mean to maintain 100+ years of water? As in reserves to last them 100+ years or something else?
- ortusdux 5y agoThis should answer most questions: http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts http://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
- bob33212 5y agoNo, the plan doesn't expect every single water supply to go empty, and then have 100 years of water in storage tanks. But it does expect that there may be a very large drop in water coming in for years at a time.
- tony_cannistra 5y agoActually, it sort of does put water away in storage tanks. Groundwater replenishment is a huge part of how urban development projects "get away" with assuring 100+year supplies. In a way, this replenishment is sort of equivalent to putting water in a storage tank. Especially when the water comes from somewhere else, like the Colorado River.
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- kilroy123 5y agoI don't understand, why we don't put more money and energy into weather modification? Not cloud seeding, something more advanced. It seems obvious we're going to need more rain or snow in many parts of the world. It also seems like a tough thing to control, so we might as well get started studying it now.
- loopz 5y agoThere is only money to be made by completely destroying our environment.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoOr maybe it is more difficult to return something to a state of lower entropy from a state of higher entropy than vice versa.
- loopz 5y agoNatural systems lowers entropy by healing. There are fluctuations, but human intervention may be preventable when humans are rational and empathic.
- dillondoyle 5y agoOr if we aren't willing to move crops out of CA and other sunny arid places (maybe the tradeoff of better growing conditions is worth it) we should put desalination on the coast and pipe it in. Power with renewables. There is plenty of water if we want it enough.
- thatguy0900 5y agoThere will be political ramifications to that. If you force it to rain on you that rain isnt landing naturally on someone else.