Still haven't figured it out.....

Been reading all of the posts about the lack of rain here and there and at the same time can remember posts not to long ago where everyone seemed to be getting flooded out. Our "engineers" have figured out how to gather, store, and redistribute everything from oil to natural gas, other liquids, gasses, solid minerals, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc....WHY NOT WATER???????

There is no reason that water from a flood in one area should not be able to be pumped to another to refill an underground aquafier (aren't several of them out West supposed to be depleting faster than they are being refilled), a huge lake, or whatever, and 'saved' for future use. Then, instead of our government subsidizing crops, and farmers having to have crop insurance for bad/dry years, all of those billions can be invested in something that makes sense for nearly all farms......like an irrigation system.

Think about it, if all of the'extra' water was stored, and used when needed to irrigate crops when needed, can you imagine the amount of production this country could achieve in areas that are otherwise unusable, or save at times when the normal, yearly crops, would otherwise be failing???

Guess to those of us uneducated individuals that can see what people in this country are really capable of, if they put their minds to it, this whole idea makes sense. Even so I figure for every one person out there that thinks, and knows it could be done given the proper thought and execution of said thought, there always seem to be two more that say it simply isn't possible and will take the time to figure out 200 reasons why it's not instead of one why it is.......Guess that's why the US lost it's statis as a true superpower on this Earth years ago..........

That is what Arizona does, but the lake is running dry. They have canals from Colorado river to the major communities. We have plenty of water in the mississippi from the rain in MN, just gotta get it to us.

I agree with you. We should be building water treatment plants and putting water back in the ground. It would help the unemployed but who would pay for it?

Wayne, you bring up some very good points. It looks like they could at least pump some of the excess water into some of the lakes that are drying up. And your last comment is right on the money! Main problem is, your solution is too simple. If you have ever noticed, to all those "intellectuals" a solution can not be simple. It has to be complicated, and take pages and pages of paper to explain. I guess that makes 'em feel important.

I think it's simply a matter of money. The above ground system requires large capital outlay. Then you have to have a water supply, be it a pond or a well. A pond cost $1.75-2.00 per cubic yard, which means a 1/4 acre pond cost about 6-8000 dollars, in average dirt. Some places a pond won't work, like porous soils that won't hold water, or rock, which would skyrocket the earthmoving cost. In '88, a respectable number of irrigation systems were sold, but then they weren't needed again for a few years. Then all that can be done is watch the thing sit in the rain and rust, while you make a payment every month. I totally agree with you on the subject of irrigation, but I think the only real solutions are going to come from farmers, not government engineers. Please, no more government.

I've long wondered the same thing---why we can't move water around to where it's needed. This country is honey-combed with pipelines; seems with the price of natural gas being at rock bottom it might be more profitable to run water through those pipes.

"There is no reason that water from a flood in one area should not be able to be pumped to another to refill an underground aquafier"

Actually, there is a very good reason. It's called "gravity". The most arid parts of the country are in the west, and (for the most part) the wettest parts are in the east. The average elevation of the west is higher than the east. Most of the Ogallala aquifer is under ground that is at an elevation of 2000 feet or more. There is no cheap way to lift water from, say, St. Louis, Missouri (junction of the Missouri and Mississippi) to eastern Colorado.

Now there are some arid spots that are at relatively low elevations. Southern California being a good example. The problem there is they've already used up most of the water available for diversion, pulling water from northern California, the Sierras and the Colorado River. And still they need more.

No way I could try to figure all the math and hydraulics buttttttttttttt its kinda expensive to move n pump hugeeeeeeeeee volumes of water long distances especially against the pull of gravity, youre talkin hugeeeeeeeeee pipes and tons of electricity for pumps....

Also the water isnt being destroyed, its already being moved for free by gravity to a hugeeeeeeeeeeeeeee reservoir i.e. the ocean...

John T Electrical NOT hydraulics engineer so no warranty

Without over thinking it,I'll just assume right from the start that if the Corps of Engineers is involved,at some point it will turn in to a disaster of unintended consequences.

There are places they have. Do not know the name but there is a lake in Russia (or what use to be Russia) that has been devistated due to diversion. Look at our own Colorado river. Does it even make it to the ocean any more?

I find it rediculious that folks complain about climate change when it has never stayed the same over time. The same folks who envoke complicated, as Dave would put it "Monkey math" to prove C02 is causing climate change can not seem to figure out simple physics that if you take energy out of the air it is going to effect climate down stream. Now I am not saying windmills are causing anything. I could careless, but come on folks its callled history. Try and learn some of it.

Water resources could be "pumped" from one place to another. Question is would you be willing to pay $100 a gallon (or quart) for it just to live in a certian area, I doubt it.

I don't think those areas are hard up enough to spend the money yet.

The Rio Grand is no longer a river. It's a polluted sewer that's closer to a drainage ditch than a river. Between the Mexican and American farmers they pull most of the water out. All the cities along the Rio dump their "treated" water from their waste water plants back into the ditch.

I shudder at the thought of our government treating water and pumping it back into the aquifers. I don't think we have the technology to treat water on the scale needed to make any difference.

Dean,How many sewer plants have you been to or worked at,Nutrient removal plants use filters that require no disenfection and even viruss cant pass through,we actually return water to the river in better condition than when it came out

jimmy

Just like I said, already people telling me why it can't be done. No suprise there I guess. The main reason always seems to be the cost to pump it, and things like 'it's already being done with dams, etc'. Ok, what I'm talking about is not already being done with dams. Dams counteract gravity and stop the NATURAL flow of a river, etc. Once gravity's effects are halted then they either harness it through the use of turbines to make electricity, or simply use 'manufactured energy' (electricity or a fuel fired engine) to pump the contained water off to other areas. When doing that they lose any energy the water did contain and, in fact, are using more energy than it contained so it's already costing money just to do what they currently. What I'm talking about would not work like that because it would be utilizing not the NATURAL flow, but EXCESS flows that are currently not utilized in any way, and in many cases are already costing money to pump elsewhere.

What I am talking about is being able to pump from various rivers and lakes, and other areas that routinely catch excessive amounts of flood water and move said water to an area that actually needs it. As it stands now if a river floods behind a dam they open the flood gates and release that water to continue on downstream because there currently nothing else they can do with it. Why not pipe/pump some of that water to another area where it is really needed. Heck, gravity can play a role in that also. If the midwest needs water and there is excess in CA, pump it to the top of the Rockies and let it gravity flow the rest of the way. Same on the East coast. If, for instance NC floods like it did some years back, pump part of it to the top of the mountain and from there let gravity flow as far as possible. This country has two continental divides, why not use them? Once the water has the 2000 plus feet of hear pressure behind it it will gravity flow on it's own from there just like it currently does. Even when it hits a flat spot, I look at it this way. I work for folks all the time that are putting in gravity sewer drains, storm drains, etc and they can figure out ways to keep crap flowing downhill for 40 miles, on flat ground, before having to pump it anywhere, so why is plain old water any different?

Think about it like I stated in the first post. Our government and insurance companies already spends Billions keeping our countries farms afloat with subsidies, paying for failed crops, etc, etc. In other words massive amounts of money are already being spent every year to counteract the effects of areas NOT having enough water, floods/natural disasters caused by too much water, etc, etc that effect our countries cash crops. On the other hand if the same amount was spent every year to insure those same areas, and others, actually HAD water that would enable them to grow either more crops than they are currently able to do, or grow crops that they wouldn't be able to do at all right now, then it seems the return on the investment would be really high.

The way I see it is this. When I look at places like Vegas and see how the middle of the desert has been turned into an oasis with huge pools of water being pumped and jetted into the air just for the shear 'pleasure' of it, my idea makes alot of sense. When I see places like New Orleans and others that routinely run HUGE pumps just to keep the city from being underwater all the time, my idea makes sense. Heck why even put a city in an area where you have to spend millions a year just to keep the 'sump pumps' operating. Why not use some common sense and build the place on dry land? No, it makes more sense in this country to build a city 'under water' and spend money to keep it dry, or build a city in the desert and spend money to keep it wet for fun, than it does to actually spend money on a project that would offer a return on the investment by allowing us to grow more cash crops.........

Like I said, maybe it just makes sense to us 'uneducated' folks, but I'm sure those same people that figured out how to keep New Orleans dry, and Vegas wet could figure it out if the consequenses of not doing so was going to cost them a meal or three.........But that's just my opinion.........

I like your "idea" fer sure, maybe if a mechanical or hydraulics engineer (Im better equipped to compute the cost of moving electrons better then huge volumes of water) can come up with the volumes and acre feet (a bunchhhhhh of gallons mind you) of water and necessary cubic feet per minute and the cost of pumping (if necessary if gravity dont do it) all that water from point A to point B and if its economically feasible ???????????? I say go for it. I lack the data (rainfall and volume of water and CFM etc) or smarts to compute all that and the cost per gallon it would take, but if we had that it would let us know if your idea is feasible or not economically speaking HEY I HOPE IT CAN WORK at a reasonable cost but wouldnt wanna bet much absent all the necessary data to compute the cost of transporting enormous volumes of water grrrrrrrrrrr ??

John T An Optimist but still a realist

Last time I saw the Rio Grande it was nasty lookin n muddy n smelly and there sure wasnt much volume or depth in the deep South Texas Rio Grande Valley. No way Id take a swim in what I saw......or eat any fish from it

John T

You see no problem with pumping flood water (which will be contaminated) into an aquifer? And can you predict areas of deficiency and surplus so the pipelines get built in the right places?

It only looks simple to simple minds!

its being done in places as you say. oklahoma city gets water through under ground tunnels from miles and miles away. But (theres always one for some reason) the problem as i see it is that most of the water for the major river systems here comes from the midwest.Lakes here fill first,then it goes downstream.not the other way around.When we have too much,so do they.Barges on the mississippi for instance are being severly curtailed by the current drought up stream,and that carries a major percentage of our goods in the us. If you were to pump even more back upstream to be held it obviously would be even lower. The problem is not getting water,as you say it can be pumped or directed for miles.But the main problem as i see it is holding it till needed.IF it were pumped directly into an auquifer as you suggest,every drop would have to be treated somehow or you would risk polluting an entire auquifer that may stretch across several states making that area virtualy unihabitable.More to it than simply moving water from point a to point b in my opinion. Besides the initial cost of building the system there would be huge maintenance costs,and lets face it, our roads and bridges are falling apart now.A better solution in my opinion would be desalination plants along the coasts,and the redirecting of water that normaly goes there back to the midwest.Infrastructure would be shorter and less costly,maintenance costs should be less,etc. note: most of the southwest portion of the US was considered uninhabitable until early in the 1900's even the spanish settlements didnt extend much north of santa fe.The reason was water. as late as 1868 a military patrol in the region to the north and east of amarillo texas survived only by drinking the blood of their horses. even the buffalo and indians would desert the area for years. the simple fact remains after all this time that it still is a dry country at heart.learning to adapt to IT,instead of adapting it to OUR needs and wishes is the answer,not trying to make it something it isnt. the whole high plains region is in fact normaly dry.we can irrigate it at great costs,of course but that is quickly becoming unsustainable. as the current dry spell points out. we have proved for years we can make the desert bloom.but at what cost? heres a little fact for you,100% of the water on earth is still on earth,it never goes away. the problem is ,is it still usable?is it suited to the task and limitations we want to use it for? thats the rub ,we pollute it then we have to treat it.its a never ending cycle.the biggest problem now is we are polluting it faster than nature can recycle it.Could we do as you say? yes it could be done but the costs would far exceed all of the combined benefits put together.maybe we could flood and hold water in the whole great salt lake basin,every drop of that water never reaches the ocean now.and it would hold theoreticaly enough water. but we would lose several major cities,a major portion of the ground we were trying to use,and displace no telling how many people who would then be relying on already strained rescources in other areas. bottom line is its sort of a catch 22 deal.

Nothing was said about pumping contaminated water directly into an aquifer. That said yes, flood waters are often contaminated, but you tell me, where do all of those contaminates currently go? Yep, you guessed it, gravity takes all of it right on down to the ocean, or right back into the ground. So, what would be the difference in sending some of that water, and filtering out the large debris which would have to be done to pump it anyway, from point A where the flood was, to point B where the water was actually needed. Even if nothing was done with the water but for it to be sprayed onto the ground, and let sink in and be filtered naturally in an area where it was needed, and then drawn out with wells, just like it would do anywhere else, it would be better than allowing it to all go to waste like it currently does.

You tell me, if you had a whole years worth of crops you were getting ready to lose, and maybe you didn't have the money to insure this years because last years crop was lost too, what would you give for just enough water to keep your operation in business? I don't think you'd really care where the water came from just as long as it got to your crops and kep you from another bad year and kept your family fed and off the streets.....

As far as predicting where the water will be, will be needed, what's the big deal there? Nowdays they can take years and years worth of weather data and feed it into a computer program and predict the weather with a fair degree of accuracy. That alone would cover the basics of what would be needed to tell you where to put the pumps and where to pump it. Anything beyond that, like I said before, I'm sure we have enough experts in this country, or maybe we need to get one from Japan, India, or China, that could figure out all of the details.

Like I said so may people with so many ides why it CAN't be done but so few that actually think it out to see how it can be done. I guess it's just easier to say we can't than to say how can we..........That's a really sad statment to be made about the people in a country that used to be a world power, a country that put the first man on the moon, the country that used to base our existance on manufacturing and being the people that said WE CAN DO IT.........

oh ,and just fyi there is a place this was done on a massive scale at one time. a place now called afganistan. what is it today?

Really there is very little 'excess' water anywhere as one area's flood is the folks's irrigation water downstream.and on the delivery end who decides who gets what water?Political ramfacations would be a nightmare as no one wants to give up their water.

That's the most well though out answer I have seen yet and your exactly right. Every drop of water that was here 1000 years ago is still here. The two $10,000 questions are wether it's all still usable or not, and how best to use it.

The only major difference I see in what the two of us are syaing is this. In your case your basically talking about the ways we have already screwed with the natural balance of things and how it has effected us. Thing is I think things have already been taken way to far to back up without dire consequenses. In my case I'm trying to take everything that has already been done into account and figure out a way to get outselves at least partely out of the hole we've dug for ourselves. Either way is going to have consequenses and costs attached, that's a given. One thing about it it though, doing nothing is getting us absolutely nowhere toward solving both the problems thrown at us by natural nor the problems caused by the things that have already been done.

Granted the idea may not be perfect, and it may take years and years, and billions to do, but why not try? The Earth is already becoming overpolulated and not able to sustain all of us naturally, so it seems to me the cost not to try would be far greater than the cost to at least give it a try.

HANG IN THERE wooooooo hoooooooo gotta love optimism........I just wish someone could compute the cost per gallon (or acre feet in these enormous figures) to move and store and/or distribute/spray/irrigate all that water from points A to B ONLY THEN WOULD WE HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY.

SURE IT CAN BE DONE they make pumps and pipes and can dig reservoirs and install irrigation systems (but remember youre talkin a gazillion gallons and a gazillion cubic feet per minute to transport it and maybe a gazillion dollars???) THE ONLY QUESTION IS THE COST, is it One Dollar per gallon??????? Is it One Thousand dollars per gallon??????? Is it Ten Thousand??? I CANT SAY

Again, hang in there Im all for ya IFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF its cost feasible???????

Ol John T Another Optimist (if affordable that is)

I'm sure when areas flood to the tops of peoples homes that the water probably wasn't used for irrigation purposes downstream. I say this because, like I said in another post, think about the way we currently do things. A river is dammed and a certain level of water is caught. That water is then run through turbines and let back out into the river bed for use downstream. Basically nothing lost waterwise, other than some evaporation form the resivour, but alot of energy gained in the form of electricity. Too, in many areas some of the held water is siphoned off for use elsewhere meaning less water goes downstream.

On the other hand when a flood occurs the flood gates are opened and the excess water is simply dumped with nothing gained by it's loss. True those downstream might see the surplus as it runs past their place, and it would be available for irrigation if needed. The problem is they don't usually get enough flow from the river to use for irrigation so they aren't set up to capture the extra when it does come.

As a resllt it's allowed to flow back to the ocean once again. From there it's back into the clouds where it's once again redistrubuted as rain. The problem is mother nature puts the rain whre she want's it and not necessarily where we need it. We already mess with nature so much in other areas to make things like we want them, so what's the difference here?

As far as the "political ramifications" go all I can say is this. If we as a country, as people, as a species, can't figure out what to do with something as necessary to sustaining our lives as water, without alot of infighting about it, then as a species we are doomed...........

Read Marc Reiser's book, [i:654c4848f0]Cadillac Desert[/i:654c4848f0]. Originally written in 1986, revised in 1993, it's still very applicable today.

Even assuming the project you suggest is technically feasible, it's not politically feasible. Big projects like this are done by Big Government. In case you haven't heard, big public works projects went out with tie-died jeans. Nor will the politicians of any state sit idly by and allow construction of a water project in their home state whose sole purpose is to export water to another state.

i do understand what your saying and i quite agree. but the problem is not the monetary outlay to the country so much,but the cost to the idividual.Would someone who has raised corn all his life on a farm ,both irrigated and non irrigated, be willing to switch to say raising sorghum instead?That would be better in lower moisture conditions but wheres the market? Would the average joe in the rest of the nation be willing to sacrifice his corn and its byproducts to eat it? To me its more of a fundamental change type thing.Sad to say human nature is to want things now,and historicaly weve sort of become conditioned to adapting our environment to fit that way of thinking.We plant corn knowing were likely to have a bad year simply because its a better money crop.The problem is we also tend not to look back wards at those places who have done it. One huge problem that i see for this country would be simply who would control the supply if it were done? would if you were controlling the supply give water to anyone who wanted it in unlimited amounts or would you supply more water to those farmers who hold vast acregages with virtualy unlimited rescources to insure the nations food supply? all of these things would be a potential nightmare and would put you in the political position of a dictator. I personally believe, and i could be wrong, that the main thing wrong with the whole US ag system is its became virtualy a two crop system ,corn and wheat.diversification could go a long way to solving these but it would mean creating a whole new way of thinking in the american public. markets for crops that used to be there years ago,would have to be restarted or created. and the research done to use these crops in a way the normal american family is used to seeing.

Pumping it over the mountains in a sealed pipe would cause a syphon effect so pumping costs may be low once it is flowing.

I second the motion that Jack in OK has it in a nutshell. Worded like a document fit to be notorized too.
Most of what is suffering now should have never been developed in the first place, but nomadic tribes had to die, and clueless immigrants conned into becoming new constituants- and customers. Politics then as hurtful as the politics of it now.
30 / 40 years ago dairying in the northsest was dying quickly, not that there was no market, but with compition from dry states that started to get good cheap irrigation pork from their politicians, as ones up here concintrated on city problems, no one noticed-didn't take long.
Now, after tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, blizzards and other transportation stoppages, there is an outcry for local grown..... 'cause the people in the cities need it!!
Kinda too late huh? Farms subdivided or grown back into thicker woods than it was 400 years ago, tough to recover from, reclaim? And now that competition from the dry states is dying even faster? But like was mentioned earlier, it ain't a sexxy subject until there are long lines to fill your plastic jugs for $3.75 a gallon.
But it took Roman 500 years to build the aquaducts Mark Clark was impressed with, and Germany 5 years to build the autobahns Ike was impressed with. But we got a new stretch of autobahn goin in every day....

If it were cost effective all the farmers in Mich would be irrigating right now. We do have the water in many areas but the cost to pump it is prohibitive.

Since the beginnig of recorded time humans have been fighting over resourses,I guess you think you can solve that?

Yep.

City just north of me has a creek that runs throught the middle of it. They have been try'n for 50 or so years to try to keep the creek from flooding in town. They have made it deeper, wider, take'n the curves out, and cleaned the trees out 50' from it. It still floods. A few years ago some of the city big wigs got it in their head they were going to put a 6' pipe underground and pump storm water under the city to keep the creek from flooding. Spent a few hundred K get'n it studied and a price estamate. 5 miles of six foot pipe, buried, and the pumps to push enough water through them to keep the creek from flooding and the price didn't like much start'n with a "B". Holding basins looked alot better after they got their jaws off the floor over the price.

Dave

Even if you had water stored up in your area, how would you distribute it? And how can it be available to everyone in a specific area? Think of all the land in all directions in 10 miles, for instance from a big water supply. Think how many miles of pipe it would take in all directions to reach all land even within 10 miles. AND... where do you store all this water... how many thousands of acres of productive land would you have to flood... and then in some years you may not need the stored water. Even building relatively small city reservoirs is EXPENSIVE.

Most of what is suffering should never have been developed?????? Drouth is widespread, through the entire Corn Belt, and beyond...........you know, the breadbasket of the world. That should never have been cropped? YOU would not exist....nor your parents. NE dairying died because of cheap irrigation courtesy of politicians? Hmmmm, seems all irrigating farmers I know had to pay for their own systems. Whole subject here is "tinfoil hat" qualified, but yours......? No viable arguments or observations. We farm, we take risks, we have drouths, we have wet years. We roll with the punches. Either that, or we don"t survive in this business.