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Western US States Using Up Ground Water At an Alarming Rate
sciencehabit (1205606) writes A new study shows that ground water in the Colorado basin is being depleted six times faster than surface water. The groundwater losses, which take thousands of years to be recharged naturally, point to the unsustainability of exploding population centers and water-intensive agriculture in the basin, which includes most of Arizona and parts of Colorado, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Because ground water feeds many of the streams and rivers in the area, more of them will run dry.
Soon the Department of Water and Power will control all the water and have all the power.
And you thought the wars and environmental harm over oil was bad, we ain't seen nothing yet.
And now all the pot farming is going to make it even worse.
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People have been talking about this ever since (and likely before) T Boone Pickens stole the water in western TX.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
That headline alarmed me!
Waterist like to pretend water is crucial for life and plant development. These are all fabrications from hydrologists who wish to keep their grant money.
Some time ago I remember reading about a proposal to building an aquaduct from the Snake River in Idaho to Southern California. It reminded me of the metaphor that when a cancerous tumor grows unchecked it will commadeer local blood vessels for its own use.
for every state along the cost.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One of the things I was looking for in a house was to be able to supply my own well water. I've got the acreage, and the area is fully developed. All 2 acre lots. Never had a problem with the water table, never should. And I won't need to deal with government restrictions over municipal supplies.
The Santa Cruz river thru Tucson has been dry for so long, the local joke is the first day that the temp hits 100F, "breaking news, the ice has melted on the Santa Cruz"
In the 1960's there were pictures of concrete pads on wells that were three to five feet off the ground. Drive I-10 near Pich-a-co Peak (Picacho Peak) and there is a ten foot drop in the highway from ground water subsidence.
Not new news.....
There is a proposal to built a freshwater pipeline from Lake Superior. I'd prefer to see growth limited to sustainable levels before they start pumping water out of the Great Lakes...but moneyed interests will probably get their way...they usually do.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
in northwestern Venezuela we are having the biggest drought in 60 years. We only have 57 days left of water, and that's including with limited use (1 and a half days of water per week!)
Our water comes by the way of reservoirs, and we depend heavily on rain. Can't remember the last time it rained and we are getting extremely worried
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All of those 2 acre lots are a tiny spot on the water table map that they lie on. Everyone else is sucking up your water and you don't even know it.
Pumping out of the Great Lakes would not make Canada happy.
Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.
This applies to all of the southwest and a lot of the plains. Land is useless for anything but energy production without a supply of water, so you drink your whiskey and fight over the water. This has been true for centuries and will continue to be true for many more.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
One of the local farmers said "I expect when we run out this next decade, everyone will be very angry over the decisions we made to plant water-intensive crops in a very arid land for so many years".
It's like Global Warming.
It's coming for you whether you believe in it or not.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why don't they just use Brawndo? It's the thirst mutilator.
So what alarmist hyper-environmentalist news stories are we to believe? Last time I checked, we had environmentalists screaming that fracking thousands of feet down leaks chemicals (sand, light hydrocarbons) through thousands of feet of permeable geological layers. If these layers are so permeable and the alarmists are telling the trough, how come it takes `thousands` of years to recharge the aquifers?
The act of fracking, or fracturing, creates many tiny cracks.
Here's a thought experiment: Stick your head under a bucket of tightly packed soil (mostly clay) in a bottomless bucket and fill it up.
Now try the same thing after you use a spade on the soil in the bucket for a few minutes.
Get the picture?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The water in the great lakes are already starting to drop. The great lakes consortium states would do just about everything to stop other states from coming in and taking their water. It would be the equivalent of Wisconsin trying to forcibly move all the wealth of silicon valley to green bay.
I really hate when they lump everyone together. The fastest draining aquifer is the Ogallala, which is in the middle of the country, not the west. What this article claims is absolutely not true in 99% of the areas included in that list of states. My state, Utah has one of the most highly regulated water systems in probably the world. We have strict regulations on wells and draw rates that are reviewed and approved by state regulators that will halt all pumping if they detect subsidence in the aquifer. The aquifers are almost uniformly carefully monitored to ensure water levels don't drop, and in some areas near the salt lake they monitor to ensure positive pressure into the lake is maintained so salt water isn't sucked back into the fresh water.
Yes there are bad situations out there, Las Vegas and Phoenix are terribly managed water systems IMO, favoring growth over conservation. We shouldn't have 6 million people living in a desert that can barely naturally support 1/10 that many. And pumping several hundred thousand acre feet of water over a mountain range for Phoenix is a terrible waste of water, not to mention the water lost to evaporation in the process and the power used.
But this blanket inclusion of all the western states in this indictment is stupid. Those of us with scarce water resources have carefully managed them for the most part. Utah's been managing water use far longer than most states because it's a scarce commodity and always has been. There is a river in Utah where every single drop is used 7 times before discharge into the Salt Lake and the river isn't very long.
If you want to talk about water misuse, talk about the areas misusing water and stop lumping the rest of us in with them.
Subsidence, as geologists call the phenomenon, is just one of the unanticipated consequences of rapid growth that have come to plague Houstonians. The city's roads, services, and even the very land beneath it, have been unable to sustain it all.
and: Moreover, downtown Houston is sinking fast, too. A recent computer simulation of the process suggested that it could sink 14 feet more by the year 2020 if nothing but ground water was used to satisfy future demand.
California is sitting next to the largest body of water on the planet, all they need to do is set up some desalination plants to make it potable
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
California Gov Brown Urges a %20 voluntary reduction in usage. The media coverage has been moderate. In a world where something as mundane as a celebrity tweet is news I have to wonder if this is being downplayed to avoid panic? Is there some broad based assumption that somehow next year or the year after is going to be different? I'm concerned that if the next three years are like this one it could be a serious problem to say the least. +1 Brawndo has electrolytes.
There is a treaty with respect to water in the Great Lakes. Not sure how that would affect things.
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You mean where they've been at the highest point in a decade because we now seeing a return to normal winter snowfalls? I remember 8 years ago that they were screaming that the end was nigh because the water levels had dropped. This was because we had unseasonably short winters with no heavy snow packs.
Om, nomnomnom...
Have you ever seen a recipe for bean soup in the US? half pound of bacon, ham, or smoke jowl, boil the shit out of it, put 2 pounds of soaked navy beans in and boil until tender adding salt and butter to taste at the end. The good tasting recipes will have at least an inch of lard coagulating on the top when the left overs are put into the fridge. But if that didn't sound bad enough, it's usually eaten with fried potatoes and buttered corn bread. (god I'm getting hungry..lol)
as for rice, the only rice dishes I am familiar with that have any flavor are drenched with something else like General Tso's chicken or sausage of some sorts with peppers, onions, and mushrooms sauteed in butter first..
Again, poor food choices. But yes, in theory, I would agree with you. I just don't seem to think it would happen in practice often. Americans like flavor.
I've been slacking, hadn't seen that one before.
Sure, given preservation capabilities far in excess of anything the human species has ever accomplished, and a way to exterminate everyone else up front, you could pull it off. Out here in the real world the laws of thermodynamics require that you assume a steadily diminishing breeding pool to pull that off - only the Midgard Serpent can survive indefinitely by eating it's own tail. As is covered just slightly further down that page - assuming everyone is struggling to survive and half the population eats the other half every month to maintain a sufficient caloric intake we'd only last a few years.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
That said if you have a lawn and your shower/bath water doesn't provide the primary water to the landscaping, you are part of the problem too.
If you still believe in the concept of lawns you are part of the problem.
At what point did people start thinking that spending resources planting and maintaining a monoculture of sterile inedible grass was a good idea? Did golf players do this to us? The same area and resources could be used for everyone to have fresh vegetables growing around thier homes except:
1) homeowners associations and baby boomers would throw a fit
2) Americans don't eat vegetables anyway
And yet you have farm, home, and cottage owners living near the shore of Lake Manitoba in the province of Manitoba screaming about the lake getting too much water from the Portage Diversion due to all the recent flooding.
If all the excess flood water could be piped South to thirsty states every spring that would likely make more than just the Lake Manitoba residents happy. Heck, the capital of Winnipeg has a floodway designed to prevent the city from becoming the center of a lake (check out a satellite image south of the city 1997)
Mild salt content is not a problem if there's at least some rainfall. Salted ground becomes a problem if you rely ONLY on irrigation.
Sad thing is Los Angeles is right there on the ocean......they have plenty of water if they would just purify it instead of stealing it from half of the rest of the country.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I live one block away from the Niagara river. Out of curiosity I compared the rate that I pay for water with the residential rates for Phoenix and L.A. My rates are the highest. No wonder the west is running out of water.
Food is not cheap. Taking inflation into account, food prices are at an all-time high on a global basis. They're even higher than they were during World War II, when rationing was in place.
The price of food increasing far faster than wages has in fact resulted in more poverty, which has in fact resulted in more obesity is many nations around the world.
The parent post should have said developed countries instead of modern world, because in developed countries food certainly is cheap. In 1900 families spent 43% of their money on food, while in 2003 it was 13%. Food is incredibly cheap by historical standards, about a third of the cost of food 100 years ago. source
Poverty only correlates to obesity in areas where food is abundant. Then the same incapability to delay gratification that causes poverty also causes obesity. One does not cause the other, they have the same root cause.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Oh no! Kids in Seattle must not have rotten teeth. The horror!
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That is patently false. 2013 was the lowest point in all of recorded history. It has gone up slightly for the season, as it always does.
Really? Best let environment canada know that their data is incorrect. After all, it appears that the water levels are above the lowest recorded, and in many cases at the highest point in a decade.
Om, nomnomnom...
For those with access to a supermarket, a combination of lack of time, lack of education, and lack of ability to delay gratification that causes people to eat junk food. Not money.
None of the above. For most poor and even lower-middle class families, the limiting factor is lack of access to food preparation equipment and facilities. Low-income housing often lacks a kitchen. Even if you have a kitchen, one often lacks appliances; trying to subsist on unprocessed food without a refrigerator or a stove is difficult to put it mildly. Families near the poverty line move from place to place a lot, often on short notice in response to evictions. There's no way they could maintain possession of bulky appliances under such circumstances, not to mention an adequate inventory of cookware.
Poor families are really living on the edge, much more than you realize. Once you get to the point where you can't afford a security deposit for an apartment, a lot of options close off. Food preparation is one of them.
Don't worry. We'll just take water from our half
The Famous Senate Restaurant Bean Soup Recipe
2 pounds dried navy beans
four quarts hot water
1 1/2 pounds smoked ham hocks
1 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper to taste
Wash the navy beans and run hot water through them until they are slightly whitened. Place beans into pot with hot water. Add ham hocks and simmer approximately three hours in a covered pot, stirring occasionally. Remove ham hocks and set aside to cool. Dice meat and return to soup. Lightly brown the onion in butter. Add to soup. Before serving, bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Serves 8.
You are correct, they like it with a lot of pork. /snrk
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff