The Hoover Dam Reservoir is at an All-Time Low:
Much of the Western US faces drought, extreme heat, and fire risk
Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam, that feeds water to 25 million people across Western states, is historically low. On June 9th, the water level dipped to 1,071.57 feet above sea level, narrowly beating a record low last set in 2016.
The lake surface has dropped 140 feet since 2000, leaving the reservoir just 37 percent full. With such a dramatic drop, officials expect to declare an official water shortage for the first time ever. That could affect water and energy that Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam deliver to Arizona, California, and Nevada.
Check out this drought map of the US.
How are things in your area? What steps (if any) have been taken to help improve the situation?
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:38AM
The grownups are all fucked up
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:06AM (24 children)
When we crossed the Little River bridge this morning, I noticed the cattle in one field, huddled together, waiting for the drought to recede back into the river banks.
https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=shv&gage=hrga4 [weather.gov]
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:41PM (15 children)
Floods in your area, drought in mine. No one could have ever predicted that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:54PM (14 children)
Every time desalination of sea water is brought up, people argue about how expensive it is, and complain about localized pollution due to excess salt.
Maybe when Californians get a little thirsty, they'll be willing to invest in a nuclear plant to supply power for desalination. At least give the major cities enough drinking water. It might be asking too much for them to desalinate enough water for the farms, but they can water the beasts in the cities.
Oh yeah - building a nuke plant somewhere near Los Angeles would also relieve the pressure on Hoover Dam to produce electricity. Nearly all that electricity is sent to Cali. Without that pressure, maybe the lake wouldn't run dry.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by srobert on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:03PM (2 children)
Nuclear fission is still a hard sell in California. Where will you put the nuclear waste? Yucca mountain? Those are fighting words in Nevada. We certainly need new sources of energy. I'm skeptical on the role nuclear fission can play. Think, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima. We need that fusion reactor that's been 20 years away for the last 50 years, and we need it yesterday.
(Score: 5, Informative) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:41PM (1 child)
interesting facts about "nuclear waste", I use quotes because labeling it as a useless byproduct shows a lack of imagination. If the spent fuel (a better description) is reprocessed using existing tech, currently prohibited in the USA, you can recover 96% U-238 that can be reused, 1% Pu-239, which can be reused as fuel, and 3% fission byproducts that are not fissile and/or absorb neutrons and "poison" the core, shutting it down. That 3% tends to be highly radioactive and has the useful feature of generating a LOT of heat as it decays.
Anything that generates heat on it's own can be used as an energy source for something, it's just a matter of how much output you want from it for a given efficiency and cost. Commercial plants need a lot of heat to generate lots of electricity so no one has looked into using the "waste" generated for anything else. But it can be prepossessed into a for that could be used for something that doesn't need the high heat of a full self sustaining fission chain.
That heat from that decay could be used to power a simple water distillation plant, and using a modified OTEC system the plant could generate it's own power and even help feed the Grid.
and one last little thing, Chernobyl, 3 mile, and Fukushima where all conventional LWTR [wikipedia.org], which is a horrible design for power generation at that scale. the LWTR was originally created by the US Navy to power their ships, it was never intended, nor recommended, for anything else. There are different reactor designs that not only lack the inherent dangers of the LWTR but also have the added benefit of being able to "burn up" their own waste. My personal favorite is the MSR [wikipedia.org] due to it's passive safety features and small size. I'm also a big fan of the Thorium fuel cycle as Th is more abundant, easier to mine, and produces fission by-products that have shorter half lives than the Uranium fuel cycle.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Sunday June 13 2021, @02:21AM
But wait, there's more! Rhodium is one of the fission products, in usable quantities, and it goes for over USD20,000 per ounce. It only takes a few decades to get rid of the rhodium radioisotopes so there's old fuel around now that could be mined for rhodium if someone came up with a tolerably safe way to work with the other nasty things in it.
Other platinum group metals are present in larger quantities but nowhere near as valuable.
Every now and then someone looks into spent fuel mining. It hasn't overcome the challenges yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:21PM
Bah! Liberals!!!
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:03PM
You can use the heat from the fission to boil water for plain old steam distillation directly, well almost, still need to keep the coolant directly in contact with the core isolated.
Hells, if they used a OTEC [otecnews.org] style system and used nuclear heat instead of the plant could produce both electricity and drinking water. Great thing about the OTEC concept is it doesn't need as much heat to operate so a smaller fuel pile could be used.
Not going to happen of course, folk in CA are so ani-nuke and NIMBY that even suggesting it. If CA does actually build anything it will be solar powered, there are some good concepts out there for those systems, and it will take decades just to break ground due to studies, lawsuits, the belief that "by the time it's finished the drought will be over" and other head in the sand reasoning.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:30PM
They can build all the new nuclear plants along the San Andreas fault line.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:36PM
Ship the excess salt to Arkansas so they can rub it in Runaway's wounds.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday June 12 2021, @07:42PM (6 children)
You want to put a nuke plant in the most earthquake prone state in the US??? Ever hear about what happened in Japan?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @09:06PM (5 children)
Japan suffered a nuclear catastrophe because of piss-poor planning. They put those generators below the level of previously established tsunami water high marks.
On second thought - Californians are no smarter than Japanese. They'll do the same or worse. Your point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @11:39PM
Bah!!!!! Libruls!!!!! Arrrg!!! Make me CRAZY!!!!
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:55AM (3 children)
Knowing Californians as I do, they'll do worse than the Japanese - they'll likely build their next nuclear plant on top of the San Andreas fault because the land is cheap there.
And then they'll put the emergency water supply on the opposite side of the fault from the reactor, fed from the California Aquaduct ( https://www.npr.org/2015/01/27/381887197/southern-california-s-water-supply-threatened-by-next-major-quake [npr.org] )
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 13 2021, @02:31AM
Meanwhile, there have been studies on evaporation from the Aqueduct... something like 80% of the water disappears between source and Los Angeles, but it was deemed "too expensive" to cover the damn thing to halt evaporative loss.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 14 2021, @03:14PM (1 child)
idiot question here: if there is an earthquake and the plant falls through the San Andreas crack, why would that be a problem?
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Monday June 14 2021, @07:36PM
Because nuclear plants don't disappear.
Sure, in a major earthquake there may be a visible fault line where the two sides have slid several feet relative to each other, but you don't get a yawning chasm big enough to drop a nuclear plant into the core of the earth. That only happens in comic strips. Instead, the ground motion breaks cooling pipes, causes electrical systems failures, cracks uncrackable concrete. Then the remnant heat of the core does the rest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:26PM (6 children)
That's why they call it climate change.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:42PM (5 children)
I wonder when the last time was, that the weather just stayed consistently boring for a whole century - anywhere. Spring rains, summer sun, fall harvest, winter snow, spring rains, as predictable as a clock. No drought, no flood, just continuous cycles of planting and harvesting.
Of course, the mastodon hunters probably weren't in favor of any of that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @07:34PM (1 child)
Weather = short term. Climate = long term.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @09:01PM
Right. So, can you answer the question? Nope, didn't think so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @09:01PM (1 child)
Tell that to the hypothermia victims in Texas.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 12 2021, @09:08PM
All 27,000 of them, right?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @11:21PM
Never, but as we all know a slight breeze on a calm day, a drop of rain when none was forecast, or snow in late October in northern Canada makes any climate change religious disciple ecstatically cum in their pants as the change in weather is proof irrefutable proof of mmcc.
Then they immediately they shit their pants in panic.
To a cc religious disciple, if the expected weather does not match the forecast it's not the forecast that is wrong, it's the weather.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 13 2021, @02:21AM
Yellowstone River is bank-full too, plenty of snowmelt coming from up above despite that we're pretty dry down here on the relatively-flats (no spring rains to speak of). Not yet flooding but the season is young. Meanwhile, at least we've got plenty of irrigation water.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:23AM (13 children)
I'm cutting back on my showers. Well, maybe not cutting back as such, per historical records :-P . Also, there are water restrictions in the San Francisco bay area [sfgate.com], and I'm guessing more to come.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:44PM (12 children)
Ask a clinical dermatologist (not the 'skincare' company shills) and they'll tell you you don't need a daily shower - it is actively harmful to the skin. Or a weekly one. Or even a monthly shower. Your skin, surprisingly enough, like the rest of the animal kingdom, is a self-cleaning organ. Few of us work in jobs where you get actively dirty/grimy every day (e.g. coal miners), so using a soapy flannel under your arms and around your genitals, then rinsing off with a wet flannel is pretty much enough. Avoid make-up, which generally isn't great for the skin, and wash your face and neck with a wet flannel when necessary. Give your feet a wash in a bucket of water occasionally.
If you don't wash your hair, it will get extremely greasy for a while - maybe a couple of weeks to a month, but then it settles down - especially if you brush it regularly. It will be a little greasier than what you are used to, but your scalp will thank you for not stripping oils from it every time you wash your hair with detergent, and the natural oils will make your hair end up looking shinier and having better condition. Don't forget to brush properly at least twice a day, otherwise it will look like a lank mess. The brushing helps to distribute the oils from the scalp along the hair to the ends - natural (and inexpensive) conditioner.
Wearing clean clothes helps, artificial fibres tend to get smelly*, so natural fibres (wool, linen, ramie, and other bast fibres - cotton is great, but uses rather too much water in production). Wash clothes in a front-loading washing machine which tend to use far less water then top loaders.
Don't leave the tap running when you brush your teeth.
Wash hands by: Turn on tap, wet hands, turn off tap. Apply soap. Work well in/lather up. Turn on tap. Rinse off soap from hands and tap. Turn off tap.
*polyester is dreadful for this, so shirts that are cotton/polyester mixes rapidly get smelly no matter how much you wash and bleach them. Nylon is pretty similar. I've no idea why - my guess is that natural fibres inhibit bacterial growth.
(Score: 2, Funny) by VLM on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:23PM
So basically, become a homeless person. Which in urban CA, will fit right in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:24PM (1 child)
I can tell you have never had a girlfriend. So whatever you say will die out in a single generation.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday June 13 2021, @12:12AM
She was technically a girl, but, well ... she had some other things going on [youtu.be].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:46PM (3 children)
Most of your post makes sense, but I'm going to question this one for our climate:
> front-loading washing machine
We've had two of these (kept until they died) and both of them were impossible to keep mold-free. We left the door open, we wiped the door gasket dry, we ran loads bleach only & baking soda only, and the damn things still wound up moldy & smelly.
It's humid here in the summer and the house isn't air conditioned--so the washer doesn't have a good chance to dry out. It is very dry during the heating season (no humidifier in that part of the house).
Switched back to a top loader, no more mold problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:21PM (1 child)
> Switched back to a top loader, no more mold problems that you can see
FTFY
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @06:51PM
If the musty and moldy smells went away for him, then I would say it worked.
(Score: 1) by tyler on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:49PM
Run a bleach cycle through every week or two. I do this with shower curtains, since they tend to get moldy. You could use towels, sheets, or anything where you don't care about color fading.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:21PM
I will continue to shower 2 or 3 times daily here in Las Vegas, especially next week when the high temperatures will exceed 110 deg daily. A nice cool shower is more energy efficient than cranking up the air conditioning. I don't need to ask a dermatologist. I feel better with a shower, and I'm pretty sure that I smell better.
To effectively conserve water, reduce consumptive use, like watering lawns. Non-consumptive water, from activities like showering and brushing teeth, goes down the drain to the sewer. It is treated and returned to the lake, resulting in return flow credits to Nevada, meaning it doesn't even cut into Nevada's annual allocation from the Colorado river, nor have much impact on the lake level.
Not showering won't save Lake Mead. It would ruin Vegas' tourism-based economy.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday June 12 2021, @11:44PM
Cotton is pretty good, cheap, and durable, so after it's manufactured, it lasts a while -- at a meeting a while back, I had a 100%-cotton company polo shirt whose fabric was in quite good condition and had been washed regularly, sadly noting that it was older than the college interns in attendance :-(. Also, you can use ammonia on cotton (i.e., non-animal-based fabrics, see "Featured Answer" [houzz.com]) to improve animal-origin stain removal.
I think of synthetic fibers as basically plastics, so my guess is that they have similar characteristics -- you can probably (?) use degreasers like ammonia on them, and through-and-through soak, soap/degrease, and rinse them, then hang-dry them as they don't "wet" and hold onto water like plant/animal fibers do. I bet an experienced dry cleaner would really know what's up, though. And as for odor retention, who knows how plastics hold onto aromatic substances? At that point, Febreze is probably your best bet.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:07PM (1 child)
If you don't wash your hair, it will get extremely greasy for a while - maybe a couple of weeks to a month, but then it settles down - especially if you brush it regularly. It will be a little greasier than what you are used to, but your scalp will thank you for not stripping oils from it every time you wash your hair with detergent, and the natural oils will make your hair end up looking shinier and having better condition.
"""
In 2 months time, I will be 4 years without shampoo. I had been weaning my hair off shampoo for a couple of years before I started - trying to stretch out the use of shampoo to 4 days, then 5, then 6, then 7. Eventually, when my hair was at peak condition (to sight and touch) 4 days after shampooing I thought I should just take the plunge and go full #nopoo. I can confirm the long-term part of this story, but I have to put up the warning flags that it might take 3 months to 6 months to settle down, in particular if you have long hair like me; and I wouldn't let people touch my hair for about a year as I was a little self-conscious. That long dip did make me want to bail many times, but I'm so glad I pushed through.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Sunday June 13 2021, @11:29PM
Yeah in the same boat, I haven’t washed my hair in years, probably about 5+. My hair is dry and wiry and is better without washing. It doesn’t smell and isn’t any more itchy or have dandruff. Now I don’t ever see a need to wash it, I don’t even think about it.
I do shower often though, 1-2 days between. But we’re in rural southern Australia on our own tank water. We had big floods and wind damage our way last week, dams are high etc here. This news is mostly saying La Niña is real, causing floods in Australia and drought in the Americas. But probably slightly worsened by climate change.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:16PM
Those tips check with my experience. When I shower I don't use soap or shampoo, but only an exfoliating cloth. I started doing it about five years ago as an experiment, and kept on doing it because of its benefits: I don't have to spend money on soaps or shampoos anymore; body odor disappeared; people comment on how young and firm my skin looks; and, most curiously of all, my seasonal allergies disappeared.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by EJ on Saturday June 12 2021, @06:00AM (18 children)
on the planet.
Get your human spayed/neutered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @07:26AM (2 children)
Ruff ruff. Woof bark woof arf.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:33PM (1 child)
This place is going to the dogs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @02:17AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by crafoo on Saturday June 12 2021, @09:50AM (3 children)
Maybe if we throw open the Southern border _even harder_, California, Nevada, and Arizona will have even less of a drought and water shortage problem? Yeah. That checks out. I'm sure welfare spending will go down, less taxes, and less money will need to be printed too. A win all around. The Progressive Death Cult will save us!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:37PM
We could try the Great Man billionaire theory again. Oh, looks like we already are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:51PM
Biden is hiding all the water next to all the lumber he's hiding according to the Qanuts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:57PM
Nazi propaganda from crafoo? Sseems on-brand.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday June 12 2021, @11:02AM (9 children)
That's not the real problem.
A big part of the problem is too many people in the desert, specifically. If the population of Phoenix were in Detroit, they wouldn't be having water supply problems.
An even bigger part of the problem is water-intensive agriculture and industry, such as the massive upsurge in almond production and American's absolute obsession with raising beef.
And of course there's that whole global climate change thingy, that predicted water problems in the southwest as a consequence of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. But, y'know, that has to be crazy talk.
The "there's too many people" is mostly just fascists looking for reasonable-sounding excuses to get rid of people they want to get rid of for entirely different reasons.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @11:55AM
yes there is large number on the dessert. But there are also lot of waste...
Golf Courses
English Gardens (netter know as Lawns)
Heavy Farming in arid areas
All this has in common, growing things the do not belong in the area. You could double the amount of people living in the area. That area includes Southern Cal. That is currently sucking water from hundreds to thousand miles away. Last heard they are still rtying to get water Lake Shasta and even the Columbia River (between Washington and Oregon).
Oh another big suck... Los Vegas city lights! But water for that is reused later. Roughtly a push.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by srobert on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:31PM (3 children)
Too many in the desert relying upon a dwindling water supply is a problem in many ways. But it is not the cause of the dwindling. The use of water by Las Vegas is not a significant cause of dropping water levels in Lake Mead. With the reduction in landscaping, water is increasingly used indoors, i.e. non-consumptive use, and then it is returned to the lake. The actual problem is drought. There has been a drastic drop in the snowfall in the mountains within the watershed that feeds the Colorado river. The large population of the desert did not cause a reduction in snowfall in the mountains of Wyoming and Utah.
If there is to be a solution to the problem, inexpensive energy sources are a key element of it. With affordable energy, communities will transport fresh water from where it is to where it's needed. Salt and brackish water will be significant sources of water through desalination, but with current methods, this requires large energy expenditures.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:40PM (2 children)
NO NO NO it's Mexicans drinking ALL OUR water, like they took OUR jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @06:35PM (1 child)
Idiot - US is drinking all of THEIR WATER!
US delivery of the Colorado River to Gulf of California, is measured in NEGATIVE numbers. .
A treaty in 1944 allocated 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year to Mexico.
Controversy between the United States and Mexico over the salinity of water delivered to Mexico was addressed in an international agreement in 1972
And still not fixed.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @08:14PM
First they need to finish the wall, then we'll give them the water.
(Score: 2, Informative) by VLM on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:40PM (1 child)
Again, in the desert. Missouri is not exactly running out of water LOL and used to have more cows than CA.
People seem to have a fixation on beef is evil because 1/10th of America's beef production is in a desert, therefore all beef is bad.
What's actually going on is California is huge, way too big, should be like three states at least. So CA as an enormous hyperstate has the second most cows in the country so cows are blamed for the drought. However if you add up all the cows living in the Mississippi watershed there's like 9 cows for every 1 cow living in the desert out west.
Sure, Iowa only has like 4 million cows vs CA has 5 million cows. But there's only one CA with 5 million too many cows for its climate, and the middle of the country has like 25 states along or close to the Mississippi all with infinite fresh water (compared to the desert, anyway) and 2 to 4 million cows... each.
As an engineering rule of thumb, Wisconsin plus Minnesota adds up to one California in land area, but WI + MN cow population is like two or maybe still three times CA. CA has been growing over the decades and it used to only be a third.
True if you take the 100 million or so cows in the USA, and figure 90 million of them live in the Mississippi watershed, figure two years to raise a cow, and the Mississippi runs about 100K gallons per second, then some multiplying and division and thats how you "prove" it takes 700000 gallons of water to raise a cow, but its not like every drop of water in the Mississippi river passes thru a cow, LOL.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday June 13 2021, @10:15AM
Everyone I've known here in California knows that the term "drought" refers to the amount of annual precipitation, not how much of it is in-demand. Until relatively recently, the northern half of the state was suitable for ranching, as we got plenty of rainfall from October through May, plus occasional storms during summertime as well — now we get occasional showers from December through maybe March, otherwise it's pretty much dry.
Demand has become a big problem as well, but that's more because housing development has rapidly increased in both scope and density over the last 30 years; fields and meadows don't require nearly as much water as high-density apartment buildings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @05:39PM (1 child)
If the population of Phoenix were in Flint, they would be having water supply problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:51AM
> If the population of Phoenix were in Flint, they would be having water supply problems.
If the black population of Phoenix were in Flint, they would be having water supply problems.
ftfy
Now, if the white pop of Phoenix were in Flint, there never would have been a water problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Socrastotle on Sunday June 13 2021, @04:12PM
Kind of tapping a hornet's nest here, but I never quite understand how the same people who are all for reducing climate emissions, and other such things are also the same people constantly advocating the 'We need to import more people into the country because declining fertility rates mean we'll see multinational corporate profits decline as well, otherwise.' Granted, they don't generally add that last part but when people speak of the "economy" that is mostly a euphemism for what I just said.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday June 12 2021, @08:18AM (5 children)
The forests are water-logged year round around here, even now with summer temperatures at a balmy 75 degrees.
If you want some of the water, help yourself - including the mosquitoes that come with it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Saturday June 12 2021, @10:57AM (3 children)
Not only do we have no water shortages, we have the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement between all US states and Canadian provinces bordering the lakes, that helps to ensure that nobody takes large amounts of the water outside of the watershed. There have been some recent controversies where that was precisely what someone tried to do, e.g. a suburb outside the Great Lakes watershed that had its reservoir running dry mostly due to a new golf course, and asked to use Great Lakes water to supplement, and the Compact kept them saying "no".
As for the mosquitoes, there's genetic experiments underway that could destroy them forever.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday June 12 2021, @01:25PM (2 children)
The reason that Great Lakes agreement is important is because only like 1% of the water is renewable there. The rest just circulates and recirculates within the watershed. Most of it arrived with the melting of the ice during the last ice age. If they drain water outside the watershed, like Nestle and others do and want to increase, then the illusion of abundant water disappears and you are left with yet another inland desert.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @04:36PM (1 child)
First I've heard of this, citation please?
Lake Ontario was up to flood stage in recent years, due to excess precipitation in the upstream lakes (and drainage areas).
(Score: 3, Informative) by canopic jug on Tuesday June 15 2021, @07:39AM
First I've heard of this, citation please?
I would have thought that it was common knowledge but, regardless of that, it applies to the basin as a whole and on average over time not to a tiny geographical subregion or a season or two. There is a lot of research on the recharge rate, but I cannot be bothered1 to find the primary sources at the moment. Here is a secondary source:
The illegal Waukesha and Nestle diversions are especially problematic in two ways. First and foremost because it takes water out of the basin in violation of the treaty. Second, there's no "accounting" system to ensure that the water is not drawn to deficit, like with every other damn thing society does especially water.
The whole reason the west and the west coast are in dire straights is that they have been consuming, abusing, and wasting far more water than is renewed. Some whole regions, such as Texas, have subsisted on fossil water and that virtually non-renewable resevoir is now ending. In the case of Texas, the lens of freshwater used to displace the salt water from the ocean. As the fresh water recedes, the salt water takes its place in the ground, eventually reaching the surface and the things that used to be able to try to grow on the surface. Parts of the Carolinas are in a similar situation in regards to depleting the protective lens of fresh water.
.
¹ Whatever you do, don't look in SciHub because that might result in possible copyright infringement while cutting into the profit margins of the big academic publishers which got the articles, journals, and editorial work all for free anyway.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday June 12 2021, @11:48PM
Probably because you've been falling behind on getting the leaves out of the drainage inlets [theguardian.com].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Saturday June 12 2021, @12:09PM (11 children)
It's as beautiful as Hobbiton. Plenty of fresh water. You have to beat the plants back because everything grows so well.
Unfortunately it's about 50 years behind the times politically, but there's a lot of that going around.
Wars are fought over resources, and we appear to be running low.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @12:17PM (6 children)
> Wars are fought over resources
Trying to imagine an Arizona/California militia invading Illinois to claim water from the great lakes.
Nope, doesn't seem very likely...the filthy raiders would just stay in Chicago after taking a few showers.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Saturday June 12 2021, @01:54PM (3 children)
I wasn't really thinking civil war internally. More like the major world powers vying for the resources they need. Think Iraq invading Kuwait, but on a global scale. WW III essentially.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:05PM (1 child)
Or Keystone XL - you didn't really think it was going to be for oil, did you? If Canada started charging the USA a fair price for its water, Ottawa would be bombed down flat to the bedrock in a day.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:44PM
Keep it real, fair price in Ottawa != fair price in Arizona. If the Ottawans would take care of delivery they could enjoy that sweet, sweet value added.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @04:25PM
Water, fresh water even, is not scarce. We're surrounded by two oceans. Desalinate the water and you have a literally endless supply of water. The only issue is that it's expensive. But relative to something like war, it's practically free in terms of cost. How much water could the trillions of dollars we've blown in the Mideast have paid to desalinate?
Like climate change it's mostly just an economic problem. Atmospheric scrubbing CO2 is also an already viable technology. The only issue is the cost, but even that would be quite negligible. Last I calculated, scrubbing our emissions to the 0 point would cost something like 3% of global GDP, and that value is decreasing far faster than the world GDP is increasing. And that value also included the setup of the initial plants themselves, so costs for years to follow would be a fraction of that 3%.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @06:47PM (1 child)
You mean like the Pinkertons and Law Enforcement using machine guns to kill the Red-Necks, in southern Kentucky..
Red-Neck term was coined then. It described union miners wearing red bandannas to show their colors. Bandannas in the mines where first face masks to help not to get black lung. Black lung, filling the lungs with coal dust. Means long term medical of the day was not costly to mine owners.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Monday June 14 2021, @02:24AM
That's just pure unfettered capitalism, not a resource war.
'Shut up and get to work or you won't like what happens next.'
WV coal wars were brutal too.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @01:09PM (1 child)
>> it's about 50 years behind the times politically
You say that like it's a bad thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:46PM
Those libby moochers. 250 minimum before we start to see some true
ConservativeTrump values.(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 13 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
Have you ever noticed that the politics of the time are generally propagated by folks living in dystopic crime ridden metropolises with people huddled together like a can of sardines, and whom have lost nearly all sense of independence? It's almost like that sort of lifestyle isn't great for your mind. The rather ironic thing about COVID is that if we do start spreading out population densities (as we should have decades ago), it will likely lead to a dramatically different political zeitgeist.
Somehow being able to stop and smell the roses can help you see things in a different way. Well, that and the party you once supported going batshit insane also helps.
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Monday June 14 2021, @02:16AM
So you have multiple Supermans /Supermen in your city?
I live in a city and its not dystopian at all except where there's poverty.
Orwellian? Yes. Most definitely, but that's happening everywhere the world over. The crazy part is people are thrilled about it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by oumuamua on Saturday June 12 2021, @01:28PM
obligatory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYtpU5b2ALk [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @02:04PM
Stop hoovering all the water from the damn dam!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:03PM
They're smuggling the water back to Jihadistan.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:39PM (1 child)
this is bad. i mean really bad. there should really be a commission set up to investigate where all the water DISAPPEARs too!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 12 2021, @03:47PM
lol it's a total mystery (China hoax).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday June 13 2021, @01:24PM
I wonder if the receding water levels have exposed any sites of archaeological interest. The Southwest is chock-a-block with those. Canyons of the Ancients is a new, very basic National Monument in the region; it has been full of Anasazi sites forever but it's only recently that just enough people have become aware of them for the government to declare it a protected area. There are many, many such places across a huge area that are undiscovered.
Washington DC delenda est.