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Sunday, Dec. 16, 2012 | 2:02 a.m.
Another view?
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We can pipe oil and gas all over the U.S., but how about water? Nada.
I can live without the first two. Our country needs another stimulus project, so let it be fresh water! In addition to accessing natural reservoirs like the Great Lakes, we can develop giant new flood retention water basins on all the major rivers with wind- and solar-powered pumping stations dotting the horizon. After all, access to water isn’t always local.
This is a politician’s dream. All across America, hundreds of thousands of new infrastructure jobs, funded by a small tax on potable water, could be created for many decades.
There could be new hunting and fishing areas for sportsmen; the NRA won’t object, and environmentalists will be preserving newly created wilderness while we’re using renewable resources to reallocate fresh water to cities and farms 24/7 across the country just as the need arises.
It’s the “just in time” water wagon. Can’t you hear the fish jumping, the geese honking, the elk bellowing and see the corn growing? What’s not to like?
Did the writer miss the part where Obama rejected the Keystone pipeline?
I am sure that Wisconsin would be happy to drain Lake Michigan with a pipeline to the desert so Las Vegas can grow grass and plant trees
Why are we trying water a desert?
STOP WATERING THE DESERT. IT IS A WASTE
In reply to Richard Rychtarik; I think your letter to the editor was filled with good thougthts, but is not practical.
I've even heard of ideas of building large water basins that would pipe huge amounts of flood waters to drought stricken areas; even this is littered with problems, such as;
Floodwaters tend to be very dirty, filled with sewage, industrial oils, and dead animals.
Floods rarely happen at the same place each year.
Droughts require huge amounts of water to fix. Much more than any pipeline could provide.
We'll just have to manage by conserving what we are allocated.
"We can pipe oil and gas all over the U.S., but how about water?"
Go ahead if you want to pay $2-4 a gallon for water like you do for oil and gas.
The better idea is desalinization of sea water. We have large population centers and important agricultural assets near coastal areas that could be supplied in this manner. This would relieve pressure on water resources in the interior that are currently pipelined to the coast.
In Nevada, we have limited water resources. We live in a desert and we need to quit pretending we don't. It's ridiculous to consider pipelining water from other parts of the State so we can cram more people into one valley. Limited water cannot support unlimited population and tourism growth.
By most accounts, the US aquifers are being used up at rates greater than they are being restored/replenished. Look around us to see how much water is wastefully used on a regular basis.
CarmineD
Profit can be found anywhere, depriving people of drinking water is an example when water is treated as a commodity.
http://blog.acton.org/archives/22663-wat...
"It sounds draconian and contrary to the beliefs of many humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations which declared water as a basic human right in 2010. However, if we expect to take the correct steps forward to solve the global water crisis, then water must be treated as a commodity not a basic human right."
To satisfy our ever-increasing need for water, we need to have integrated systems. Although costly, desalinization near coasts is one strategy. It will place priority on use demands, and will relieve sole dependence on snow pack streams and rivers.
Utilizing treated grey water on crops and landscaping is a strategy now also being used in many parts of the country.
What we are NOT seeing is SUSTAINABLE planning by Commissions. Somewhere, the growth has to stop, and SUSTAINING and strengthening what is place must take priority. Consistent efforts in conservation need to be happening. Who is enforcing laws about broken water lines, sprinklers, and water running loose in parking lots and streets? Here in this desert, I regularly see water wasted, and been told they will get around to it. Sometimes a month, year, or never. Where's the justice?
Most maps show flooding areas, be they 100 year, 20 year, or seasonal flood plains. There are locations where it consistently floods and these waters can be harnessed BEFORE tragedy hits (which contaminates the waters). Having been a heavy construction superintendent's wife (building dams, locks, channels, highways), I have quite a bit of knowledge and experience in this area. The letter writer reflects a viable plan that would truly be of benefit for many. I have witnessed this throughout this country and around the globe.
Politics is a BIG player in this. With human-changed, altered geography, having a profound impact on the environment, creating more demand, not less, for water, we must do what we can to address supplying the most basic of needs...water.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Water is cheap compared to gas and oil.If for some unforseen reason water rates were to jump to oil and gas price levels,we would hear water companies telling us that we need to make water available in areas of our country facing drought.Money seems to make man move on much needed issues.
For southern Nevada, desalination plants near heavily populated areas in Mexico and SoCal would make more sense, with their share of river water then being transferred to SoNev. Plus more efficient use of what we have.
Mr. Rychtarik
Ah...I think that the water from the Great Lakes is already spoken for!!!
"I can live without the first two (gas and oil)"
Please, for one month do not use any oil and gas; or products that have oil or gas; or products that were produced by machines that need oil or gas; or any services that were delievered by people using okil or gas.
Here is a short list of the above that you would be deprived of:
Food
Shelter
Water
Clothing
Heat
AC
Computers
Cars
Busses
Trains
Planes
Bikes
One problem: we already threw away all the stimulus money and then some.
Richard....
Pay little attention to a majority of the posts made on this thread. Actually, your suggestions are worth studying.
Of course, not everyone of them would work or would be cost effective but you make several good points. I'm not surprised that a majority of the resident right-wingers on this board immediately "trashed" your ideas.
The word progressive or change is not part of their vocabulary. If they had their way, this great country would still be back in the early 1900's, still trying to figure out how to build an automobile or an ocean liner.
Your suggestions, if put into operation, would require real leadership from Congress (that would be a problem) and a progressive approach that conservatives are scared too death of....
Reading the various negative posts (It will cost too much.....it won't work, etc..) reminds me of the reaction that many Americans had when a man named Theodore Judah went around the country during the late 1850's talking & pushing for the building of the Ist great transcontinental railroad. Some people called Judah "crazy" and others said that the railroad simply couldn't be built...we, as a nation, weren't up to it!
Others said the railroad wasn't needed and would cost too much, and others said that the railroad was "a road to no where."...
Of course, as you know, one man in particular didn't look upon the building of a transcontinental railroad as unachievable or impractical. His name was Abe Lincoln.
Lincoln pushed through Congress the American Railroad Act in 1862 calling for the building of the great transcontinental.....
Lincoln did this despite the fact that this nation was currently fighting a civil war.
As we both know, the Union won the civil war and the great transcontinental was completed less than five years after the end of the war.
Also, the completion of the great transcontinental not only speed-up the settlement of the west, but the road paid for itself a thousand times over.
Thank you for your letter...