A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

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Glennfs
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A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by Glennfs »

https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion ... 746391001/

When I first read this article I thought it was a joke. Then as I got further into it not only is it a legitimate idea. It is something we
need and should do.
Especially when you see how little if the water from the Mississippi would be needed.
It is an infrastructure project that relatively speaking wouldn't cost much. That could be paid for by the users and would benefit everyone.
Last edited by Glennfs on Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Really Feeat Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by Glennfs »

https://newssudden.com/sharing-mississi ... d-america/

More links I know these are only letters to the editor but that doesn't make it any less a great idea.
" I am a socialist " Bernie Sanders
gounion
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Re: A Really Feeat Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by gounion »

Glennfs wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 9:22 am https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion ... 746391001/

When I first read this article I thought it was a joke. Then as I got further into it not only is it a legitimate idea. It is something we
need and should do.
Especially when you see how little if the water from the Mississippi would be needed.
It is an infrastructure project that relatively speaking wouldn't cost much. That could be paid for by the users and would benefit everyone.
A few things. First, the reader letter-to-the-editor SAYS it will be "fantastically expensive" - whereas you say it wouldn't cost much.

Reality: We don't know, but I'd say it'd be REALLY expensive. It would probably be something like the Alaska pipeline, only BIGGER, to pump enough water to make a difference.

And if Joe Biden proposed it, you would be against it, that it's inflationary and increasing spending, blah blah blah.

It WOULD be one pipeline that a break wouldn't do anything, except maybe flood people out.

But secondly, we need to look at things like continued research into desalinization of ocean water. That's a lot closer to where it's needed.

But you'd have to have engineering studies. I mean, even the great plains are hurting because they've already drained the ogallala aquifer. But I'm sure this has already been looked at.

But my one thought is, we don't have a very good track record of the robbing Peter to pay Paul water stuff, look at what L.A. did to Owen's Valley.

Of course, the one thing that worked back in the day was the Tennessee Valley Authority, but you don't like that because that was socialism. And there aren't many places left that you could dam up even if you wanted too.

But you like the idea of these "easy" fixes instead of dealing in the root problem - climate change. You want to pretend it's not real.
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ProfX
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ProfX »

I think this is a good idea, especially as I am a fan of Buckminster Fuller.

One of the things he constantly emphasized is we need to figure out better how to share fundamental resources like electricity, energy, and water nationally ... and globally.

Some states are flooding, some states are parched in drought ... it's just rational to think this through and solve that problem. We have to be willing to think in unified ways for resource allocation.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by gounion »

Now, I don't know what the Mississippi river level is right now, but this is from Aug 2021:

Image
Entire channels of the Mississippi River are caked dry. Rocks, riverbeds and islands of the St. Croix and Minnesota rivers are visible for the first time in decades. Dozens of streams are at their lowest recorded levels since at least 1988, or even the Dust Bowl.

On Wednesday, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) put much of the state in a "restricted phase" as the drought continues to get worse. That means water utilities and suppliers will need to cut down the total amount of water used to no more than 25% above what they used in January.

Parts of Minnesota have even slipped into the most severe level — "exceptional drought" — for the first time since the U.S. Drought Monitor began ranking droughts by four levels of intensity. The ranking system wasn't around during the Dust Bowl, but meteorologists believe that and the drought of 1988 might be the only time Minnesota has been this dry.

"When you think of a 100-year flood, it's something that you'd expect to happen once in 100 years," said Mike Griesinger, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "Well, what we're seeing in Minnesota is something that you'd expect to happen just two or maybe three times in a century."
Instead of thinking this is a no-pain thing that will fix everything, I am not nearly as sanguine as you, Glenn. This yahoo says it will only be a few percent of the river flow, but will it? And what happens when the river is so low barge traffic is stopped?
JoeMemphis

Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

This isn’t a new idea. I first heard about it in 1982. Water rights is a big deal. The Mississippi and pretty much everything to the east of Mississippi is eastern water rights. Everything to the west of the Mississippi is western water rights. The big debate is that if you divert part of the Mississippi to the west does that make the Mississippi and its tributaries western water rights. Folks in the east are not used to buying water rights. Most don’t understand what water rights are or what restrictions it could impose on farmers, municipalities and businesses in the east.

I hadn’t thought about it in years. It’s an interesting thought. Millions of gallons of fresh water flow through the MS into the gulf. The west is parched.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by gounion »

JoeMemphis wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:33 am This isn’t a new idea. I first heard about it in 1982. Water rights is a big deal. The Mississippi and pretty much everything to the east of Mississippi is eastern water rights. Everything to the west of the Mississippi is western water rights. The big debate is that if you divert part of the Mississippi to the west does that make the Mississippi and its tributaries western water rights. Folks in the east are not used to buying water rights. Most don’t understand what water rights are or what restrictions it could impose on farmers, municipalities and businesses in the east.

I hadn’t thought about it in years. It’s an interesting thought. Millions of gallons of fresh water flow through the MS into the gulf. The west is parched.
But do we want a Mississippi that ends before it ever gets to the ocean, like the Colorado does? I don't think so.

And you're right - if the west started getting some water from the Mississippi, they would want more, and more, and more.
JoeMemphis

Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

gounion wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:46 am But do we want a Mississippi that ends before it ever gets to the ocean, like the Colorado does? I don't think so.

And you're right - if the west started getting some water from the Mississippi, they would want more, and more, and more.
That would explain why it’s been discussed for decades and nothing has been done. California and Houston own a lot of the water west of the Mississippi. I’m sure folks in the east would not agree to be governed by western water rights. As I understand it, water rights covers runoff, wells, lakes, ponds etc. we don’t have those complications in the east and I doubt folks this side of the Mississippi would go for it.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ZoWie »

The thing with water is that it comprises 3/5 of the planet's surface and is 9 miles deep in a few places. The one thing that distinguishes this planet from all the other ones we know anything about is an absolutely inordinate amount of water.

The problem is that people live in places where the water isn't. We are not fish, but the inside of our bodies is more like a fish's than we choose to think. We carry the ocean around inside us. It's called evolution.

The obvious solution, though it's fraught with unintended consequences, is to get more of the water to where the people are. Oh, I know, you can't drink the ocean, but we have technology to fix that. It can be done, if anyone wants to do it. Meanwhile, there are also still a number of ways to do the old fashioned process. Some are good, some are bad, and some (like digging the canal that caused the Salton Sea) are disastrous. We need the wisdom to know the difference.

[Intermission]

Now, that LA thing. It's a famous parable from the history of American growth patterns. It followed the Golden Rule. The people with the gold made the rules. The people, mostly down south, coveted the water from the valley 400 miles north, near where they'd taken most of the gold out and sold it at ultra-bargain rates to rich folks. This enabled the rich to raise capital selling it to the government to back up the currency in the economic system of the time.

Bryant and his cross of gold, and all that.

The people with the gold (or at least its economic benefits) who had settled down south caught on that they were living in an arid basin that could become a real estate boom were they only to steal someone else's water. So it came to pass that they bought the valley, ran the farmers out at gunpoint, and pumped out all the water. The valley became a wasteland covered with toxic dust that at least once a year blows westward and causes all manner of problems along the coast. Several hundred miles south, LA still didn't have enough water, but there was just enough to cause a land boom. Then they tapped the Colorado River, making deals with 30 other places to share it, and leaving ever less of it to actually make it to Mexico. I understand that the Colorado Delta does trickle occasionally. Coulda fooled me. All I see is dirt.

They named a street where the rich kids have midnight races in their $500,000 cars after the engineer who designed the ditch that didn't really work out very well to get the water they pumped out of the valley all the way down to Tinsel Town. It's the fabled Mulholland Drive. Nice view from up there. You can live there too if you have $15 million to spend on a 2-bedroom house.

In other words, LA was a mistake. Now we have the other end of the climate and no one knows what to do with the place. They ration water, they threaten to ration electricity, and it's generally on the wrong side of history. It's a crime ridden sinkhole running on entertainment industry hype.

The way to deal with the water thing is largely to stop making mistakes. We know better. We can have water and humans, but we have to try harder.
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ProfX
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ProfX »

ZoWie wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:41 am The obvious solution, though it's fraught with unintended consequences, is to get more of the water to where the people are. Oh, I know, you can't drink the ocean, but we have technology to fix that. It can be done, if anyone wants to do it.
Desalination is an awesome process. The problem is it requires a LOT of energy, money, and electricity to do. If that weren't true, that answer would be the obvious one. Yeah, I remember Planet Ocean, used to be a educational center on Key Biscayne, they reminded you all the time the planet is 2/3 water.

Alas ... the fresh water is all that humans really want to drink, and use for ag, and do all the other stuff. Like run water parks or stop their lawns from turning brown. Or bottle, turn fizzy, and overcharge people for. :D

Dunno. I am not ruling out that desalination, like nuclear fusion, can be a bigger and better answer for humanity, if there are some future technological breakthroughs. We just need to get there first.

One final point: we can debate what things people should have ownership and private property rights over. On that ledger, I think one thing that maybe should not be own-able by private individuals, and dare I say, even private enterprise, is water.

A nice summary of said debate.
Water Should Be Owned And Supplied By The State
https://debatewise.org/water-owned-supplied-state/

There's a strong case for H20 socialism, given how essential it is to life.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

ProfX wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:46 pm Desalination is an awesome process. The problem is it requires a LOT of energy, money, and electricity to do. If that weren't true, that answer would be the obvious one. Yeah, I remember Planet Ocean, used to be a educational center on Key Biscayne, they reminded you all the time the planet is 2/3 water.

Alas ... the fresh water is all that humans really want to drink, and use for ag, and do all the other stuff. Like run water parks or stop their lawns from turning brown. Or bottle, turn fizzy, and overcharge people for. :D

Dunno. I am not ruling out that desalination, like nuclear fusion, can be a bigger and better answer for humanity, if there are some future technological breakthroughs. We just need to get there first.

One final point: we can debate what things people should have ownership and private property rights over. On that ledger, I think one thing that maybe should not be own-able by private individuals, and dare I say, even private enterprise, is water.

A nice summary of said debate.
Water Should Be Owned And Supplied By The State
https://debatewise.org/water-owned-supplied-state/

There's a strong case for H20 socialism, given how essential it is to life.
I would be careful when buying a tract of land in the west. You might end up owning just a few inches of top soil because someone else owns the mineral rights and another individual owns the water in the stream that flows through the middle and still another owns the water in the aquifer below your feet so you can’t drill a well. You may not even be able to dig a pond.
Of course that’s what I heard from a couple of professors on a college trip thru the badlands and gold mining territory of New Mexico and Colorado in the 80’s. Things might have changed since then.
[/quote]
Last edited by JoeMemphis on Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by bird »

JoeMemphis wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:50 pm I would be careful when buying a tract of land in the west. You might end up owning just a few inches of top soil because someone else owns the mineral rights and another individual owns the water in the stream that flows through the middle and still another owns the water in the aquifer below your feet so you can’t drill a well. You may not even be able to dig a pond.
Joe, that goes on in a lot of places. I do not own the mineral rights for my property. They were sold long before I bought it. Around here it is sand and gravel quarries. They can literally come and start digging any time they want. I am also on Utica and Marcellus shale so my property can be fracked or have horizontal drilling from a well thousands of feet away. If my well gets screwed, I am screwed.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by gounion »

bird wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:56 pm Joe, that goes on in a lot of places. I do not own the mineral rights for my property. They were sold long before I bought it. Around here it is sand and gravel quarries. They can literally come and start digging any time they want. I am also on Utica and Marcellus shale so my property can be fracked or have horizontal drilling from a well thousands of feet away. If my well gets screwed, I am screwed.
You'd think Joe would know. I know that they decided to frack one block from me back when I lived in Texas, and we had no rights at all in the situation. They could do whatever they wanted.

But that's the corporations' rights over human and individual rights that Joe champions so much.
JoeMemphis

Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

bird wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:56 pm Joe, that goes on in a lot of places. I do not own the mineral rights for my property. They were sold long before I bought it. Around here it is sand and gravel quarries. They can literally come and start digging any time they want. I am also on Utica and Marcellus shale so my property can be fracked or have horizontal drilling from a well thousands of feet away. If my well gets screwed, I am screwed.
What state are you in?
JoeMemphis

Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

gounion wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:59 pm You'd think Joe would know. I know that they decided to frack one block from me back when I lived in Texas, and we had no rights at all in the situation. They could do whatever they wanted.

But that's the corporations' rights over human and individual rights that Joe champions so much.
If I didn’t know better I would think you are trying to start a pissing match. And here I thought we were going to talk about water rights.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by bird »

Here we are getting into the classic political economy clash:

Who owns what?
Who gets access?
Who can pay for access?

This has long been illustrated in the debate regarding population and food. The problem is not amount of arable land but where it is, who owns it and who gets access to it and the food it produces.

The age-old description of political economy: who gets what, where, when, how and why.

Btw, I read the thread with comments regarding population growth/stability. Those projections are just that, projections. Do they have validity? Of course, based upon what we know now. As with anything projections are based upon data from immediate past applied to immediate future and beyond. The farther (further?) out in time the less accurate they will be. If or when humans start truly mass migrations due to climate shift all projections will have to be discarded.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by bird »

JoeMemphis wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:01 pm What state are you in?
Northeast Ohio.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

bird wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:05 pmNortheast Ohio.
I have never really had to mess with mineral rights on property. In West TN where I grew up that was uncommon. Lots of clay and chalk around here. Not much oil and gas that I know of. I’ve heard of people selling the rights to their timber but that’s about as deep as I got into those kinds of things.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by bird »

JoeMemphis wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:12 pm I have never really had to mess with mineral rights on property. In West TN where I grew up that was uncommon. Lots of clay and chalk around here. Not much oil and gas that I know of. I’ve heard of people selling the rights to their timber but that’s about as deep as I got into those kinds of things.
Yeah, it depends on where and what. Glen talked about his issue near his house and I mentioned that there is a big horse farm near us that one quarry came in and just started digging up about a quarter of their property. The quarry owned the rights.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by JoeMemphis »

bird wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 3:14 pm Yeah, it depends on where and what. Glen talked about his issue near his house and I mentioned that there is a big horse farm near us that one quarry came in and just started digging up about a quarter of their property. The quarry owned the rights.
Lots of people have no idea to check that kind of thing when the buy property or they don’t understand what it means. Most developers look for those kind of things prior to building and developing. But individuals often don’t know or don’t understand.

Around here we just get the usual squabble about zoning commercial versus residential or where the county wants to put the land fill. Of course nowadays every manufacturer has environmental concerns which means folks located near those plants and downstream have concerns. All those things have to get worked out. I’ve seen a few of those. But mineral rights just isn’t that common in West TN. I’m in Florida now. So the focus here seems to be on conservation of wetlands and the coast.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ZoWie »

ProfX wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 1:46 pm Desalination is an awesome process. The problem is it requires a LOT of energy, money, and electricity to do. If that weren't true, that answer would be the obvious one. Yeah, I remember Planet Ocean, used to be a educational center on Key Biscayne, they reminded you all the time the planet is 2/3 water.
There are a variety of processes but indeed none have proven practical on a massive scale. All require energy, but some are bigger energy hogs than others.

The power lines going into our current means of water delivery tend to be rather large ones too. Actually William Mulholland's aqueduct was gravity feed all the way, but the others aren't. Also you still have to filter the water and send it out through pipes under pressure. Water weighs 8.5 pounds a gallon, and that's all there is to it.

At one time wells were enough for a lot of people, but that was then and this is now.

When I talk about the ocean, I include rain, since that's where most of it comes from. Rain has been purified for us. It's nature's version of distilled water, up to a point anyway, depending on air pollution. We let too much of it get away. We could use more of it on its way back to the sea.

Some places, notably LA, could do way better with this kind of thing. About once or twice a year, the Los Angeles River, a cement channel hundreds of feet wide in places, actually fills up. It goes straight into the ocean, spreading homeless people's piss and similar such output, discarded oil, dead animals, fertilizer, and about 100 diseases onto the beach and into the water, so you can't go there for days. Honestly. LA can do better than this. At least let it replenish the water table. The ground will filter out all the crap.

Maybe in FL where it rains all the time there are fewer problems with this kind of thing. There's that east vs west water thing again.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ZoWie »

bird wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 2:56 pm Joe, that goes on in a lot of places. I do not own the mineral rights for my property. They were sold long before I bought it. Around here it is sand and gravel quarries. They can literally come and start digging any time they want. I am also on Utica and Marcellus shale so my property can be fracked or have horizontal drilling from a well thousands of feet away. If my well gets screwed, I am screwed.
You can't buy a house in LA without signing all manner of papers regarding mineral rights. There's nearly always some old lady somewhere who owns whatever you would get from some oil company or other. There are also rights of easement, and all that other legal stuff.

Big mess with beach real estate. Everything below Mean High Water is public. That means that the public has the right to use the ocean and much of the sand. But the people that own the homes tend to be rather well heeled, and they do everything they can to make sure people can't get to this resource except by boat or paddling miles on a surf board. Sometimes they surf too, then they put up LOCAL ONLY signs and work you over if you try to surf there.

Lots of work for lawyers here.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by gounion »

ZoWie wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:26 pm You can't buy a house in LA without signing all manner of papers regarding mineral rights. There's nearly always some old lady somewhere who owns whatever you would get from some oil company or other. There are also rights of easement, and all that other legal stuff.

Big mess with beach real estate. Everything below Mean High Water is public. That means that the public has the right to use the ocean and much of the sand. But the people that own the homes tend to be rather well heeled, and they do everything they can to make sure people can't get to this resource except by boat or paddling miles on a surf board. Sometimes they surf too, then they put up LOCAL ONLY signs and work you over if you try to surf there.

Lots of work for lawyers here.
Yeah, Zowie, it's all about taking away the commons that everyone shares. And make no mistake, wars of the future will be fought about water.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by ZoWie »

The US had a fair number of water wars when the west was being settled. Even in the Owens Valley, there was some armed resistance to LA buying up the place and throwing farmers off the land. At least once, the farmers blew up the aqueduct.

This stuff is touched on in Polanski's Chinatown movie, though the chronology there is way off and it's generally oversimplified for dramatic purposes. The movie did get it right that the rich people behind the SoCal land boom were legally untouchable. "He owns the police!"

That's still a big problem in LA. Real estate developers are considered a beneficial force of nature.
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Re: A Really great Idea if We Weren't so Divided

Post by Number6 »

The idea of diverting Mississippi River water to the West is just that, an idea that won't go anywhere. Instead of diverting water from the Mississippi River why not build canals to channel runoff from areas that flood yearly to reservoirs throughout the West.
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