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Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

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Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#11

Post by moocowduckquack »

pilom wrote: post #6

Funny for this to come up now. I'm reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner now which is all about water policy in the western US. The short answer is that we consume WAY more water than all of the precipitation on the entire region can support so we end up depleting the aquifers. Eventually (likely within my lifetime) those will dry up and they we will have to either start diverting water from Canada and Alaska, or d…

Pump seawater to Nevada and cover it in desalination greenhouses. http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#12

Post by dpedu »

> ... analysis showed that it would cost half a million dollars to construct a water well into deep, but high-quality aquifer reserves ... led regulators to allow a uranium mine to inject more than 200,000 gallons of toxic and radioactive waste every day into the underground reservoirs.

Wow. The stupidity and nearsightedness exposed in this article is astounding.

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#13

Post by pilom »

Buttons840 wrote: post #7
pilom wrote: post #6

Funny for this to come up now. I'm reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner now which is all about water policy in the western US. The short answer is that we consume WAY more water than all of the precipitation on the entire region can support so we end up depleting the aquifers. Eventually (likely within my lifetime) those will dry up and they we will have to either start diverting water from Canada and Alaska, or d…

Would conservations (like people giving up luscious grass lawns) be enough to sustain the population in the west? (In your opinion.)

Well, about 80% of water use (in the west) is for irrigation purposes. Ideally, making farmers pay market (and externality adjusted) rates for their water would discourage them from growing plants which need a lot of water per unit food (like alfalfa). We could get a LOT further with water-aware legislation for what farmers can grow (or if you prefer a libertarian viewpoint, have the government stop subsidizing water for farmers in drought prone areas).

Whether that would be enough to survive off the precipitation alone with our current population I kinda doubt (especially in Southern California), but you never know.

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#15

Post by moocowduckquack »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #2

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that regional borders are more often than not a human concept? You do not live in the United Bubble of America! That having been said, wasn't there an article yesterday about how 30% of Californian pollution comes from China? Or a few weeks ago that radiation from Japan is hitting our shores? This is not what they meant with "Think locally, act globally."

I think that is usually said the other way about anyway.

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#16

Post by jeffdavis »

pilom wrote: post #8
JonFish85 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not difficult to understand, it's difficult to enforce. Mexico can set up laws about polluting their own water, but how are they going to enforce it in the USA? Same with CA--we can ask China to cut down on pollution, and they'll apparently promise it, but who's to enforce it? Ask more nicely? Or is it on the factories / companies themselves? Is a factory in China going to sacrifice economic growth so that a Cal…

Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. The US agreed to make one of the biggest De-salination plants in the world just before the border and now the US pays about $300/ton to clean up the Colorado River before it flows into Mexico.

http://www.usbr.gov/lc/yuma/facilities/ydp/yao_ydp.html

That says the plant is not currently operating. It also says that it's only "included" in the water sent to Mexico. I don't see any indication that it's used for anything close to the full volume of the Colorado River.

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#17

Post by peterwwillis » 

  For example, in eastern Wyoming, an analysis showed that 
  it would cost half a million dollars to construct a water 
  well into deep, but high-quality aquifer reserves. That, 
  plus an untested assumption that all the deep layers 
  below it could only contain poor-quality water, led 
  regulators to allow a uranium mine to inject more than 
  200,000 gallons of toxic and radioactive waste every day 
  into the underground reservoirs.
WHAT THE FUCK

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#18

Post by dragonwriter »

pilom wrote: post #8
JonFish85 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not difficult to understand, it's difficult to enforce. Mexico can set up laws about polluting their own water, but how are they going to enforce it in the USA? Same with CA--we can ask China to cut down on pollution, and they'll apparently promise it, but who's to enforce it? Ask more nicely? Or is it on the factories / companies themselves? Is a factory in China going to sacrifice economic growth so that a Cal…

Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable. The US agreed to make one of the biggest De-salination plants in the world just before the border and now the US pays about $300/ton to clean up the Colorado River before it flows into Mexico.

> Actually Mexico threatened to take the US to international court during Nixon's presidency because the water coming out of the Colorado River into Mexico was so salty it was killing crops and un-drinkable.

That doesn't really answer how it would enforce anything; sure, in that case, the US may have chosen to do something, but if it hadn't, its not like winning a case at the ICJ would have forced the US to do anything.

Consider, e.g., Nigaragua v. United States. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#19

Post by mindstab »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #2

Why is it so difficult for people to understand that regional borders are more often than not a human concept? You do not live in the United Bubble of America! That having been said, wasn't there an article yesterday about how 30% of Californian pollution comes from China? Or a few weeks ago that radiation from Japan is hitting our shores? This is not what they meant with "Think locally, act globally."

I think the headline reads a bit differently. Mexico, in tapping its own deep aquifers is proving it's possible and desirable, is now saying to the US "watch it, that water of yours you are polluting? you might actually want/need to drink from it, and sooner than you'd think"

Re: Message from Mexico: U.S. Is Polluting Water It May Someday Need to Drink

#20

Post by schiffern »

pilom wrote: post #6

Funny for this to come up now. I'm reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner now which is all about water policy in the western US. The short answer is that we consume WAY more water than all of the precipitation on the entire region can support so we end up depleting the aquifers. Eventually (likely within my lifetime) those will dry up and they we will have to either start diverting water from Canada and Alaska, or d…

…or switch away from insanely inefficient (90% evaporation) center-pivot irrigation.

Not to mention our practice of shunting rainwater off fields as fast as possible. This high-speed, high-runoff condition leads to soil erosion, failure to recharge aquifers, and really gives rise to the need for irrigation.

Dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. They're not even cost-optimal or land-optimal, merely labor-minimizing (most of the arable land in the US is controlled either directly or indirectly by conglomerates, who generally view labor as messy and undesirable).

Again, dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. Fortunately this means that when they inevitably collapse, we get wealthier as more efficient systems replace them.

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