Floridaman
Well-known member
There is a reason we say the state bird of California is the locust.
Things get worse in The Southwest
- Thread starter Cherico
- Start date
And here we see the long term results of the farce that is the Colorado River Compact; turns out doing water allocation in a wet period can seriously skew what is a 'normal' amount of precipitation.
I'd be fine with cutting Cali, NV, and AZ off from the Colorado whole sale; rather the farmers and such in Mexico use the water, or just let the river flow to the ocean again.
Cali can afford to pay for desal plants, and can set up the pipes to ship it to NV and AZ.
I'd be fine with cutting Cali, NV, and AZ off from the Colorado whole sale; rather the farmers and such in Mexico use the water, or just let the river flow to the ocean again.
Cali can afford to pay for desal plants, and can set up the pipes to ship it to NV and AZ.
Bigking321
Well-known member
They just need nuclear power plants and lots of desalination plants.
Hell, they should run pipelines to areas where the water table is depleted. Create artificial lakes that can slowly replenish them. Not sure about the science there but I assume that would work.
Water scarcity is a solved problem. We have had the technology for decades.
But screw that. Let's reroute rivers and destroy natural habitats.
Hell, they should run pipelines to areas where the water table is depleted. Create artificial lakes that can slowly replenish them. Not sure about the science there but I assume that would work.
Water scarcity is a solved problem. We have had the technology for decades.
But screw that. Let's reroute rivers and destroy natural habitats.
That's complete BS. Renegotiating the river compact is all well and good, but the interests of a foreign power should never be put ahead of American interests, especially when it comes to a corrupt, failed regime like Mexico.
Floridaman
Well-known member
Speaking of Cali recently shot down the idea of desal plants as usual the Californians don’t actually want to solve their problems
I honestly think the rest of the country should cut us off from the colorado.
We have everything we need to solve the problem and are only suffering from our own stupidity.
I should point out that California already has twelve major and numerous minor desalination facilities, including the largest desalination plant in the entire Western Hemisphere -- the Carlsbad Desalination Plant, which produces up to fifty million gallons a day. That single plant meets nearly ten percent of the San Diego metropolitan zone's water needs all by itself.
Desalination is an "unlimited" option, but it's also the most expensive option for potable freshwater, which is why there's reluctance to invest heavily in it. The Carlsbad plant cost a billion dollars and the bottom-line cost of water from it is almost triple the rate of water from other sources; the same company that built and operates it has been lobbying for twenty years to secure permits and funding for another desal plant of the same capacity in Huntington Beach, and that one is projected to cost $1.4 billion.
49ersfootball
Well-known member
YIKES.
Then how about just letting the river reach the ocean again?
Seriously, the over use of the Colorado by Cali, NV, and AZ has been a massive ecological tragedy that has been ongoing for decades now.
Floridaman
Well-known member
Yep it devastated the wild life and climate in the border region. Funny how environmentalist california has destroyed a massive ecosystem.
Even In An Epically Dry Year, Water Flows Into Parched Colorado River Delta
Seven years ago, a pulse of water on the Colorado River at the U.S.-Mexico border temporarily reconnected it to the Pacific Ocean. Scientists used the so-called “pulse flow” to study what plant and animal life returned to the desiccated delta along with water.
www.kunc.org
Yep it devastated the wild life and climate in the border region. Funny how environmentalist california has destroyed a massive ecosystem.
Even In An Epically Dry Year, Water Flows Into Parched Colorado River Delta
Seven years ago, a pulse of water on the Colorado River at the U.S.-Mexico border temporarily reconnected it to the Pacific Ocean. Scientists used the so-called “pulse flow” to study what plant and animal life returned to the desiccated delta along with water.
California's politics is more or less defined by open hipocracy.
Basileus_Komnenos
Imperator Romanorum Βασιλεύς των Ρωμαίων
"Actually solving our problems?! No I don't want that! I want to keep my ruinous policies as they are and spread them to the rest of the country for ten years at least!"
-CA Politicians
Again, that's simply not factually accurate. California already has more desalination capacity than the rest of North America put together, and there are reasons to disfavor desalination compared to other sources of potable water.
Fun fact: Arizona technically has an even larger desalination plant than the one I was talking about in California, and they've had it for thirty years. You know why no one counts it in desalination capacity? Because it's only been used three times in its entire thirty-year existence, other than which it's remained permanently shut down due to the operating expense being too high relative to other sources of water and because Mexico did some treaty bullshit. The plant operated at one-third capacity for a six-month period from its completion in July 1992 until January 1993, fourteen years later a test run at one-tenth capacity for nine months was authorized to verify that the plant was still operable, and then an experimental pilot run at one-third capacity for three months was completed in 2007.
Fun fact: Arizona technically has an even larger desalination plant than the one I was talking about in California, and they've had it for thirty years. You know why no one counts it in desalination capacity? Because it's only been used three times in its entire thirty-year existence, other than which it's remained permanently shut down due to the operating expense being too high relative to other sources of water and because Mexico did some treaty bullshit. The plant operated at one-third capacity for a six-month period from its completion in July 1992 until January 1993, fourteen years later a test run at one-tenth capacity for nine months was authorized to verify that the plant was still operable, and then an experimental pilot run at one-third capacity for three months was completed in 2007.
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For that matter, the whole saga of the Yuma Desalting Plant should serve as a giant object lesson in, "Mexico operates in extreme bad faith to the point where they arguably should be treated as a rogue state."
The short version of the story is:
1. Extremely salty runoff from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona flows into Mexico, poisoning Mexican farmland where it drains.
2. Mexico somewhat legitimately complains about this and the United States agrees to fix the problem. The initial proposal to simply buy out every farmer in the Drainage District and shut down the offending agricultural operations sparks enormous political controversy in Arizona, so a compromise option of building a massive desalination plant to process the runoff is agreed upon.
3. During the first stage of construction, a 53-mile long temporary canal is built to divert the saline runoff from Mexican farmland to the desert. As this removes approximately 100,000 acre-feet a year of water from the Colorado River system, the U.S. is required by existing treaties to compensate Mexico by increasing its Colorado River water allocation by the same amount.
4. Mexico gets ludicrously greedy and decides that they really like getting that additional water piped directly to them as opposed to the river. They designate the artificial, temporary wetland created by the re-routed runoff as a "natural preserve", then claim that the U.S. has to compensate them even more because operation of the desalting plant will destroy their designated natural preserve.
5. TL;DR: The United States built the largest desalination plant in the entire Western Hemisphere for the sake of Mexican farmers, then Mexico maliciously blocked us from actually using it so that we would have to continue "compensating" them for the damaged farmland.
6. Fuck Mexico.
The short version of the story is:
1. Extremely salty runoff from the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage District in Arizona flows into Mexico, poisoning Mexican farmland where it drains.
2. Mexico somewhat legitimately complains about this and the United States agrees to fix the problem. The initial proposal to simply buy out every farmer in the Drainage District and shut down the offending agricultural operations sparks enormous political controversy in Arizona, so a compromise option of building a massive desalination plant to process the runoff is agreed upon.
3. During the first stage of construction, a 53-mile long temporary canal is built to divert the saline runoff from Mexican farmland to the desert. As this removes approximately 100,000 acre-feet a year of water from the Colorado River system, the U.S. is required by existing treaties to compensate Mexico by increasing its Colorado River water allocation by the same amount.
4. Mexico gets ludicrously greedy and decides that they really like getting that additional water piped directly to them as opposed to the river. They designate the artificial, temporary wetland created by the re-routed runoff as a "natural preserve", then claim that the U.S. has to compensate them even more because operation of the desalting plant will destroy their designated natural preserve.
5. TL;DR: The United States built the largest desalination plant in the entire Western Hemisphere for the sake of Mexican farmers, then Mexico maliciously blocked us from actually using it so that we would have to continue "compensating" them for the damaged farmland.
6. Fuck Mexico.
liberty90
Evil Neoliberal Cat
Oh, but that would not only need to pass environmental reviews, but also be consistent with desires of a local community, usually very sceptical about anything that looks like industry...
Actually the main villains are econuts on both sides of the border, mostly Greenpeace and the Sierra Club
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
That's a ridiculous mischaracterization of the Yuma Desalting Plant. The fact that Arizona's, y'know, completely landlocked and can't access ocean water to desalinate probably plays a role in why they don't heavily use Desalination.
The desalting plant itself doesn't make fresh water to drink and was never intended to, it purifies agricultural runoff that would otherwise flow to Mexico due to treaties involving how much salt runoff the US is allowed to dump on its neighbors.
It has rarely been used because a: The level of salt hitting Mexico is usually less than the treaty stipulates currently. B: if turned on, it will discharge brine into the Ciénega de Santa Clara wetlands, which are home to a wide range of endangered species and that would be an environmental catastrophe.
Money has little to do with it.
Buba
A total creep
From what you wrote I reached a different conclusion - farmers have too much political clout. Billions USD spent to keep a few thousand Arizona farmers in operation.
Dude, the Cienega de Santa Clara "wetlands" are an artificial construct created by the construction process of the Yuma plant. They are not a legitimate natural preserve in the slightest.
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