urbanSTL

O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — A group developed to help improve management of the Mississippi River Watershed has issued it a disappointing report card, and says urgent action and billions of dollars are required to address flooding and water quality concerns in the nation’s largest rivers. https://apnews.com/article/water-qualit ... c15d82ec79

No drought here. Spread the word:

framer wrote:No drought here. Spread the word:

And this is only early March... brutal.


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Living in the desert never appealed to me for a number of reasons...

1. Limited water resources.
2. Hot.
3. Homes and city scapes seem colorless.
4. Expensive.
5. Limited transit systems, so car dependency is high (which makes sense since it's hot).

So all those people who live in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and parts of Utah and Colorado, in my opinion, all made the mistake of moving there.

Building cities in the desert is one of the dumbest things we've done as a civilization.

SeattleNative wrote: ↑

Mar 07, 2021

framer wrote:No drought here. Spread the word:

And this is only early March... brutal.


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Yep, going to get brutal out west for everyone except Seattel/WA which got most the rain this winter.   I think most of the bay area is at roughly 40% average with a small storm couple nights ago and another this week but unlikely not much more.   Sierra snow pack a little better in north and central at 60 & 65% if I recall news reports correctly but in touch shape on south end.

Of note in my business,  the Lower Mississippi river levels have been low for last several months after about 2 to 2 1/2 year stretch of continuous high water levels.    I think their expecting an average snow melt at best w average to below average river rise this spring.    On the plus side, the Corps is knocking out most of their deep water ship channel deepening projects from New Orleans to the Gulf as their is not much infill to impede (on bad side, less infill means like work for my industry).   They will complete two deepening projects this month and have one left to finish.   That should support bigger container ships as well as improve business model to move containers up river via Mississippi

^^^^Phoenix, Tucson, and the Sonoran desert is only the southern third of Arizona. It's not representative of the rest of the state. Much of the northern half is at 4000-5000 ft. elevation, with mountains, huge ponderosa pine forests and large lakes. Most of the summer is mild and nights are cool. It looks and feels a whole lot more like Colorado or Northern California than the desert everyone just seems to assume.

Arizona (Humphreys Peak):

Courtesy of Outdoor Project

^I will gladly grant that a desert at 6000' of elevation is less oppressively hot than one at 6' of elevation. That said, the majority of Colorado is also a desert. A high desert is still a desert. A cold desert is still a desert. The mountains do get more rain than the lowlands. In fact, they're a part of why the lowlands don't get the rain, as the moisture precipitates out over the Sierra Nevada and Rockies and every mountain in between. Some of that snow flows down into the rivers and the (mostly manmade) lakes in the middle of the desert. And for the record, I'm happy to travel to that desert more or less anytime, but you can't help but noticing every dang lake in six states is low. It's hard to miss. The drought is a real problem. One we've helped make for ourselves through our land use patterns. (Much like the flooding here.) And one whose solution we'll have to work on pretty hard.

Found this article interesting:

Wall Street Eyes Billions in the Colorado’s Water - New York Times

Wonder when ideas to tap into the Missouri River or the great lakes to more water out there will become real. Do we say "move to where there's water" or will we waste billions that could go to something else to enable more people to live in the desert.  I guess that's a political question.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Mar 10, 2021

Wonder when ideas to tap into the Missouri River or the great lakes to more water out there will become real. Do we say "move to where there's water" or will we waste billions that could go to something else to enable more people to live in the desert.  I guess that's a political question.

Their is already an authorization and believe now federal appropriations in latest Corps work plan for Missouri River water diversion infrastructure in North Dakota, moving water from west to east - reservoir to Sheyenne River I believe.  I think most if not all of the upstream Missouri River reservoirs include allotments for diversions.   So in the long term I wouldn't be surprised if you see same issues that are coming to Colorado River with a lot of infrastructure built to move water out of the river with decreasing amounts will come to the Missouri River sooner then later.   

"The West is the driest it's been in 1,200 years — raising questions about a livable future"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/drought-west ... 06545.html

No water shortage here in St. Louis; we need to capitalize on it! Greater St. Louis Inc. needs to spread the word. 

STL city water dept is sitting on a $30m surplus balance. And it’s operating only at like 35% capacity. Time to make money

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Jun 11, 2021

STL city water dept is sitting on a $30m surplus balance.  And it’s operating only at like 35% capacity.   Time to make moneyI

I can't help think of one area that the State and region as a whole has failed is an industry that utterly depends on a massive amount of water is the chip/semiconducter business.   Maybe their is still hope but with a major govt subsidy to expand domestic capacity to happen as well as one area being the southwest that will have a water storage one or another

 https://www.inc.com/peter-cohan/250-bil ... iness.html

Commerce will invest $54 billion aimed at increasing U.S. production and research into semiconductors and telecom equipment, as well as design and manufacturing initiatives. It will also receive $10 billion in funding for the matching grant program described above.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/12/weather/ ... index.html

Some people are finally starting to question the wisdom of building massive data centers in desert areas. The same should be said about any water-intensive industry:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/irresponsibl ... 32143.html

"Water is so scarce in Mendocino, California, that restaurants have closed their restrooms to guests, pointing them instead to portable toilets on the sidewalk."

Meanwhile, Phoenix has passed Philadelphia as the nation's fifth most populous city. 

framer wrote:"Water is so scarce in Mendocino, California, that restaurants have closed their restrooms to guests, pointing them instead to portable toilets on the sidewalk."

Meanwhile, Phoenix has passed Philadelphia as the nation's fifth most populous city. 

And Phoenix is still growing rapidly. It feels like there is going to be a RAPID realization that’s a bad idea and people are going to leave quick when it happens.


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Interesting article on how things play out on western water concerns.   Nebraska to build a canal in Colorado to act on water rights 

https://www.enr.com/external_headlines/ ... 1021934J9T

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska water regulators rallied Wednesday behind a proposal to build a $500 million canal in neighboring Colorado to divert water out of the South Platte River , a project steeped in fears that the fast-growing Denver area will consume most of the river's water.

Sounds like an ecological disaster.

^Growth out west has been a slow rolling ecological disaster at least since the Roosevelt administration. Maybe since the Teddy Roosevelt administration.

Belt Magazine - America’s Largest Inland Port is Running Out of Water

https://beltmag.com/joliet-illinois-lar ... -of-water/

^ thanks,  Another article being circulated but in this case groundwater issues coming to bear in Michigan as well.  Yep, we as country have been great at exploiting resources on an economic basis but in a lot of places the idea of cheap reliable underground water is drying up. pun intended.  It will take real investment in infrastructure, conversation means & methods and truly paying for water going forward.  

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/loc ... b38a69de8b

"My greenhouse sits 12 miles from Lake Michigan, one of the greatest sources of fresh water in the world," the Ottawa County grower said. "And I didn't have enough."
His struggle, resulting from a geological quirk and heavy demand from farmers, developers and homeowners in a surging section of southwest Michigan, is a cautionary tale for a state counting on its reputation as a water paradise to be a competitive economic advantage as climate change afflicts hotter, drier regions.

Some futurists depict Michigan and the Great Lakes as "climate havens" that will lure people and businesses weary of worsening drought, wildfire, hurricanes and other disasters. Not so fast, skeptics say. Amid images of abundance lurk problems with pollution, overuse and deteriorating infrastructure.

Outsiders "see these five enormous lakes and assume there's more than enough water for everybody," said David Dempsey, an environmental analyst for government agencies and activist groups. "But we have tons of unresolved problems."

^^America's largest inland port, huh? New Orleans might want to dispute their definition of "port." I think they're counting in terms of warehouses, railroads, highways, and parking lots. The US DoT list doesn't even break Joliet out from the rest of the "Illinois Waterway." Which collectively had 14.9 million tons of commerce in 2021. Coming after St. Louis, Cincinnati, Mid-Ohio, and Lake Charles LA, all of which had more than twice that. And New Orleans and Baton Rouge, each of which had more than four times that. Largest inland port my tush! You won the railroad war, but you can't have the port. Go home ya lousy Cubs fan  ingrates! Yeesh!

Never you mind that the point stands. Note that Missouri has been involved in an intermittent water fight with upper basin states over water going into the Missouri for twenty years now, more or less.