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Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

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Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#241

Post by wil421 »

atoav wrote: post #136

Before looking at the water source, wouldn't doing the bare minimum to control the water sinks would be in order? I mean, we have harder regulations on water useage in the alps, and this is a water rich area where only 3% of the a available water is used. The truth is that the water a land will provide is limited. And of course you could expand this water by also taking the water from another land, but maybe pitting…

You’re assuming these people are thinking logically and rationally. The governments and elected politicians don’t want to do anything that will hurt the farmers and associated communities. Not to mention the water allotment agreement is 100 years old and needs to be revisited.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#242

Post by ethagknight »

Moving water West by train sounds like it could be a viable solution. A DOT liquid car can hold 30,000gal, and 30,000gal/sec is the proposed solution from the article, provides at least a sense of scale required. Trains are probably more efficient for moving water uphill than pipes and pumps due to friction losses in the pipe. Bonus points because the infrastructure already exists! All the train would have to do is get water across the continental divide, and release it into a reservoir of choice just across the line. Bonus points for electrifying the railway. During wet seasons, this seems wasteful. During water rationing emergencies, there seems to be no more flexible way to engineer a reflexive water provisioning network.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#243

Post by walnutclosefarm »

akiselev wrote: post #165
walnutclosefarm wrote: post #118

In terms of where the water comes from, sourcing at Old River Control makes a lot of sense. From there the water really does pretty much run into the Gulf of Mexico, and there is no downstream irrigation, power generation, or shipping impact from a 5% diversion. But the writer makes the engineering sound trivial, when it's really not. The first thousand miles are all uphill, so you're not talking about a canal, as th…

Those sound like big numbers but unless my napkin math is very wrong it's not even an order of magnitude more than existing Californian water projects like the California Aqueduct [1]. 1 m/s flow through a 40 m diameter pipe is 1256 m^3/s which is less than four times that of the CA aqueduct at 370 m^3/s and the distance is five to six times depending on how you measure it at 2000-2400 miles compared to 440 miles. Ju…

I don't doubt it's doable. But I don't think "barely an order of magnitude" quite captures the scale of the engineering. The Edmonston pumps, e.g., while they do raise water nearly 2000 feet, only move it a couple of miles, and have a capacity roughly 1/8 of what this proposal requires. Most of the California project can be gravity "pumped" canals. But there isn't much of the route from Louisiana to NE New Mexico that is or can be made to be downhill. There is way more than an order of magnitude more pipe and pumping to be built and provisioned in this proposal.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#244

Post by cafard »

Wonderful. The federal government built massive projects along the Colorado River. Arizona and Southern California got subsidized water and electricity. It took a very few years for the population of Arizona and Southern California to decide that they were sturdy pioneers and that what the US needed was less government. How many years of Mississippi/Missouri basin water before they resume quoting Ronald Reagan on "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." The Hoover Dam was completed in 1936; Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination in 1964; and Ronald Reagan came to political prominence as a speaker for Goldwater.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#245

Post by jprd »

vidanay wrote: post #228
golergka wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who moved to LA in the early 70s, and left LA in the late 80s, and spent some time to visit Palm Springs, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, I can say with full confidence that anyone with a lick of sense knew there was not enough water to sustain that growth that started back then, but that didn't stop anyone from building or buying those homes. They all knew it, but didn't care. But Las Vegas is treating almost a…

If they were close to water neutral, I don't think they'd be declaring a water emergency with less than two months water supply remaining. https://abcnews.go.com/US/las-vegas-declares-emergency-50-da...

That's Las Vegas, NM

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#246

Post by wil421 »

tresil wrote: post #121
eschulz wrote: post #3

Would reducing 5% of water from this point in Louisiana not also have a noticeable impact and that state's environment? I could see a significant legal battle here, much bigger than we've seen in cases where other states down stream feel as though they are wronged by states upstream. Louisiana will ask itself, "to what extent will we be forced to give water to the entire US Southwest?".

States like Colorado are already “giving” most of “their” water to other states. Louisiana could probably be convinced to do the same. Reducing the flow of water in Louisiana by 5% would not have noticeable impact on the state’s environment when you consider that annual variability of water flow must be far higher than 5% for such a vast and dynamic watershed. If that kind of annual variability is not often creating…

The army corps of engineers killed Louisiana’s ability to create land by taming the mighty Mississippi River. The river used to change direction and spew sediment into the barrier islands. For the past 100 years the barrier island have been shrinking due to sediment loss.[1]

I saw a documentary recently about canals that will be used to direct sediment into the barrier islands before it reaches the Gulf.

>Until this USGS study was undertaken, environmental managers thought that the principal cause of barrier island erosion was rising sea level. Now, we know that both the longshore movement of sediment and the general absence of sand-sized sediment is the principal cause of the islands' instability. The sediments underlying coastal Louisiana are made up mostly of silts and muds which do not contribute to the building of beaches, dunes, and spits—geomorphic features associated with healthy barrier islands. In addition, long-shore currents redistribute the available sand from headland areas to embayments, depriving shorelines of much needed sand.

[1]https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/barrier-islands/

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#247

Post by kickout »

bee_rider wrote: post #95
kickout wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think CA would still be 5th in GDP without reliable water? Unless desalination becomes more efficient, CA is thirsty.

It looks like agriculture isn't a huge percentage of their economy, so they'd probably still be up there (unless I've misread the chart). https://www.statista.com/statistics/304869/california-real-g...

I was trying to imply once water sourcing becomes a major issues, basic needs for residents will become hard. Agriculture is small % but if water is a problem, there will be some exodus of people/corps. That’s where the big gdp hits would likely come from

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#248

Post by _8j50 »

cafard wrote: post #244

Wonderful. The federal government built massive projects along the Colorado River. Arizona and Southern California got subsidized water and electricity. It took a very few years for the population of Arizona and Southern California to decide that they were sturdy pioneers and that what the US needed was less government. How many years of Mississippi/Missouri basin water before they resume quoting Ronald Reagan on "I'…

So what? I don't get your point.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#249

Post by kickout »

jahewson wrote: post #85
kickout wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can engineer the crops (plant breeding) or engineer the water (current system). Eastern geographies that are rain fed could replace CA production no problem

No. Firstly because California doesn't grow crops, it grows fruit and nuts, that grow on trees. Secondly because look, flavor and shelf-life all matter for these far more than crops, one cannot simply conjure up the desired properties. It's hard enough to create decent commercial fruit varietals as it is - a vast amount of effort and research has gone into creating the fruit and veg you see in the supermarket and the…

Appreciate your comments but your simply wrong or misunderstanding what biologists can do.

Also, those nuts and fruits and avacados you currently like weren’t bred for taste. Likely bred for transportability and shelf life. That’s why export markets exist is the produce can withstand long journeys with variable parameters and arrive “fresh”.

Thirdly, to another comment you make saying engineering acres is science fiction while building a water canal is less so. We can build retractable roofs and keep heat and light in pretty easy. Glass houses and/or greenhouses can likely be scaled up to replace whatever CA crop you seem to think is untouchable. Those crops can and do grow just fine in other places. Maybe not year round but there exists options to fix that and remove CA from equation

Lastly, i see many people chiding the subsidies of corn and soy and wheat. What do they think the water in the Central Valley is if not a subsidy? Farmers most certainly are not paying a fair market price. Artificially low. But it’s ok. We need food. No point in bashing subsidies without proper context.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#250

Post by kickout »

hindsightbias wrote: post #96
kickout wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fruits and vegetables existed before the Central Valley you know. CA doesn’t have a monopoly on producing those. I’m fine not eating salad in December if you give all the water back from the Colorado river.

Actually, it is a literal monopoly on many things. For example: > California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on). Those other states are mon…

The monopoly exists because they pay artificially low prices for water. Those crops grow just fine in many locations and even controlled environments. If ag left the Central Valley, we would find a way. Likely not even a difficult problem and certainly not a problem if the money was used to decentralize Central Valley production.
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