Water restrictions

Water shortage is finally hitting the fan AZ, NV and CA are going to be hit big time and there will be more to come. Its going to get interesting real soon and especially next year if we don't get the moisture and Im doubting that.

It’s real bad here in Utah

So will they figure how to make the desalination process cheaper or build a pipeline to the Great Lakes ?

Dry as a popcorn fart here and its been coming for a long time nothing works without water.

it was just a few years ago the great lakes were down 7-8 feet we are up high right now but that doesn't mean much

you would be better off building more bigger reservoirs where the water is needed and let them fill when it does rain , dig while it's dry

switch from ethanol corn to food and grow it closer to the better water we can feed a lot of people not burning corn as fuel , not when it takes so much natural gas to make it into portable fuel.

Well live in a desert and I guess you do without.

Import beavers.
They'll cut the cactusses to make dams.

Sam Kinnison has a great bit on this, that due to some foul language, I can't post here. Here is a transcript cleaned up.

"You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don’t send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, “You know, we’ve been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn’t BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it’s gonna be 100 years from now? IT’S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don’t LIVE in them, morons!”

Keith

Kinnison, don't send them water, send them luggage, move. More or less.

It would be a win-win situation during wet year cycles
as often the Great Lakes chain are swimming in an over
abundance of water.

Let the overflow rip into the aquaduct in years of high water,
and turn off the spigot when dry cycles are prevalent.

Make California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico
pay for the pipeline and charge them per gallon.

Oh, and teach them water conservation.

walleyed

If they tap into the great lakes the lakes are doomed. People need to leave the desert. Don't deplete and abuse our natural resources, live in harmony with them.

Cant mess with great lakes water. Half of it belongs to Canada. Been brought up before.

if you were going to do that it would make a lot more sense to pull the water off at the Illinois and Mississippi approximately St louse the issue is St louse if 466 feet and Kansas city is 909 you would be liftin it 443 feet just to go that first leg and that is a drop in the bucket compared to Pueblo at 4692 feet just a 3800 foot lift

digging the reservoirs larger in the west any place they are low now start increasing capacity a cubic yard of fill out is a cubic yard of capacity added

if you were going to move water wouldn't it make more sense to move it from the north west , put in a dams before letting the water flow into the ocean and becoming salt water then pump it closer to sea-level down the coast

sure those rivers are a lot smaller but diverting those rivers and pulling water from them before they dump into the ocean is a lot shorter distance than pumping it clear across the continental divide the amount of water going into the pacific or rather not going in shouldn't make a hill of beans difference.

yes those rivers are probably dry right now , but over winter and spring collecting more water in enlarged reservoirs could meet the difference with a lot less work and cost than a trans continental pipe line.

there are rivers all down the west coast first put a lock and dam on each of those before they dump the fresh water into the pacific and pump to a reservoir closer to the demand

Umm, that is a ridiculous idea to dam all the west coast rivers. You trying to kill off all the steelhead and salmon? Here in ID we're barely meeting brood stock requirements as is, and building more dams would be the final nail in the coffin. I could care less if the idiots in CA stay thirsty, they made their bed now they can sleep in it.

thankyou for proving my point , the history of the great lakes is basically , great fishery , and another invasive moves in and we spend decades adjusting to it , fishery gets great and you guessed it another invasive

maybe not a dam just pumping stations at the point closest to a reservoir

it should start where the demand is and work out not start far out and work in

point being people see water on a map and think oh man untapped resource it can handle it but there is so much more to every water way and fishery

So far I think your safe but I sure will not rule out the possibility of that happening.

Steve Martin said it best -

"California is brain dead "

"Turn off the water and everything dies "

Tapping into the Great Lakes might solve one problem but only promote the expansion of invasive species.

First thing Cali did was to cut off the farmers they have it all figured out like always. LOL morons

All the states and Ontario have a pact betwixt themselves....NO water leaves the Great Lakes Basin without they all ok it. What are the chances of that? Slim-to-none. The day will come when a shooting war will be fought over the freshwater in the Great Lakes. It is likely in the not too distant future. We are lucky as heck in this area, we have water galore. It wouldn't take much to change all that. A few years with drought and it could all go away. About 20 years ago we had a spell of drouthy weather.......lakes dropped to lows like none of us had ever seen. The rivers and streams were trickles in places.......that was just through a dry spell, what if those spells turn into 3-4 years, or a decade or two? Our aquafers and water tables will drop in a big way. Maybe it won't happen, but it wasn't that long ago that the southern Great Plains dried up to the point that a huge population shift happened. Nothing stays the same for ever.......ask the folks that used to be commercial fishermen on the Aral Sea!

Great Lakes water can only be used within the Great Lakes watershed...I agree with those questioning why some live in the desert, yet want to water their gardens...

It's not just commiefornia and the desert southwest. Longterm water is going to be problems everywhere.

Apalachicola Bay on the Florida Panhandle has closed indefinitely the harvest of oysters, arguably among if not the finest tasting oysters in North America. This is just the latest in a generation long saga of how water is managed up stream. Specifically the Chattahoochee River which rises in the southern appalachians and drains the western half of Georgia and is the easternmost drainage of the Gulf of Mexico.
The core issue is Atlanta, a metropolitan area of over five million souls. Atlanta sits on a low ridge east of the river and the vast bulk of it's water is either pumped directly from the Chattahoochee or from Lake Lanier, a flood control impoundment of the Chattahoochee. But instead of returning that water to the Chattahoochee after treatment instead the bulk of that goes over the ridge into the South River, historically the most polluted river in Georgia, which drains into the Altamaha system and on into the Atlantic.

Florida, Alabama and Georgia spent decades and millions of dollars in litigation over the Chattahoochee and water rights. During the last major drought Lake Lanier was drawn down to half capacity just to supply Atlanta. It almost led to war with Tennessee as Atlanta leadership looked into an old border dispute that would've given Georgia access to a half mile stretch of the Tennessee River. Tennessee was ready to send the National Guard to prevent Atlanta from tapping the river for water.

And that's just north Georgia. Pull up a Google earth satellite photo of south Georgia and it's a photo of wall to wall crop circles from pivot irrigation all drawn from the deep underground Florida aquifer which is the origin of the river of grass we know as the Lake Okeechobee/Everglades system. Already we have seen and are seeing historic springs throughout south Georgia with reduced or non existent flows.

15 to 20 years ago, plans were there to build a water pipeline from Alaska, I believe estimated cost was 10-20 billion. Drop in the bucket to the money the dems are throwing away on unicorn projects.

Turtle,

With all due respect, how was that harmony with nature in
2017 and 2019 when the high water from Lake Ontario,
and maybe Lake Erie was flooding people out ?

w

Turtle,

With all due respect, how was that harmony with nature in
2017 and 2019 when the high water from Lake Ontario,
and maybe Lake Erie was flooding people out ?

w

If the states with more electoral votes decide they want Great lakes water,
The Great Lakes Water Compact will be summarily shredded by the federal Gubmint.

If we are already "wasting" water by dumping it down the St. Lawrence River
in high water cycles, why not get ahead of the curve by diverting surplus to
arid regions and leaving enough to keep Montreal afloat.

You think if the Federal government wants our Great Lakes water they wouldn't seize it ?

Better to get ahead of the curve and dictate the surplus water distribution
on our Great Lakes State (and Canadian) terms.

walleyed

I would say the harmony was working pretty good, it's not a good idea to build where there isn't too much water and maybe not so good to build in areas that can flood

Don't build in deserts
Don't build in floodplains

Same thing

Shifting water around caused the problem in the desert areas and will just create more problems and is like putting a band aid on a severed limb. The only benefit of watering the desert is you can produce food year around. They need to conserve water, stop flood irrigating and conserve water. Oglala aquifer will be the next problem area and no fix there until the next ice age. Problem is to many people to feed and everyone Al gore types that have to have multiple houses and waste resources. Another problem that comes with reservoirs like Lake Mead, Powell, Grand Coulee and Ft Peck is when they go dry there will be a grand loss of hydro electric power production the death of a lot of fisheries. Tapping the great lakes is not conceivable because of environmental issues. water loss for users there and would not last long those reservoirs are big. If you have never seen the amount of water coming down the grand canyon, headwaters of the Missouri and the Columbia river you know what I mean.

One of his best and he had a good point.

At least it would put the welders to work that aren’t on the keystone pipeline, here we’re really dry the Iowa river could be crossed with knee boots I’m pretty sure we’ve lost quite a few beaver and muskrats, the beavers don’t bother me but it’s a shame.

Pipe line as big as the Grand Canyon dream on.

The Great Lakes have well over 60 million people in the USA and Canada living in the watershed. Yes they are the largest supply of fresh water in a concentrated region in the world but the watershed that feeds those 5 large water bodies is very small when one considers the cubic feet of water in those lakes and the amount of water used. The Great Lakes watershed in general has not received the moisture over the last year or so that many areas have. The west needs to find a long term dependable water source or the landscape will change dramatically. Ag is a huge consumer of water and is low on the totem pole when it comes to wealth to buy out the water rights or keep them Probably going to be some huge and consequential court decisions in the future if moisture does not come soon and in large amounts. As long as we are spending trillions maybe spending some on water infrastructure and new methods that could be practical. Maybe people would not pollute the oceans as much as they do if they knew the water was coming back to their water tap or shower.

Bryce

There was an older gentleman that sat on the state water board the same time l did. He always said someday water will be worth money than oil, he may be right.

The old man had foreseeable wisdom.

building in a desert is one thing but building in a desert and having swimming pools, water fountains, watering grass lawns, washing cars and thinking that water will never run out is beyond stupid.

I'm always amazed at the stupidity of man, every time I visit the daughter in Vegas I see it better than anywhere else I've been.

Remember that marinas where high and dry, had to shut down. Ferry's could not run because the docks where not usable.

Anyone remember Cape Town in South Africa running out of water? Not sure what happened there but it was in the news a couple of years ago. The water was basically rationed by the town shutting it off for sections of the town on a rotating basis. Hong Kong had the same thing happen in the 60's I believe, the water was only turned on for parts of the day.

Found this video interesting, 13 Golf courses and a bunch of lawns in the desert. The disregard for natural resources is astounding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWpui1P9cAY

I couldn't agree more. People just keep moving in from out of state and expect the water to be there. And it probably will be for those willing to pay. My son, who works for the Department of Water Quality, always says, Water doesn't flow down hill, it flows toward money.

Seriously one of the reasons I was hesitant looking out west when looking for ground . Water rights and laws seemed observed. Some stated you can't collect rain water off your roof becuse some how it belongs to the people down stream.

Just seems odd to a guy that has lived within 45 min or less to the 2nd largest river in the country.

This did get me thinking about desalination plants, if they were viable, about cleaning the water and pumping it up into Colorado and Montana to the head waters of the Colorado river and the Missouri and let it flow from there now it probably could never be enough to raise the water levels during a dry year but if it could maintain the levels until there was more rain and snowfall to then raise it, it’s just a thought but maybe one day it could happen.

So the average flow of the Colorado river is usually 12-15 million acre feet per year.
It is now flowing at an average rate of 2.8 million acre feet per year.
The biggest desalination plant in the world is in Saudi Arabia and produces 306,730 acre feet of fresh water a year.

No way this technology can be used to reproduce/top up a river of any size. The energy draw of these plants are huge, the cost and the environmental impact of the massive amounts of brine they produce are all expensive.

That’s why I said if viable.

Fresh drinkable water will be the New Gold in the forseable future.Mark my words.

I predict the levels will come back up a bit, when the flu bug goes away and with it, all of the hand washing. (Just kidding).