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Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

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Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#61

Post by hef19898 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #54
hef19898 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that we, or rather I, mowed our lawn often, at most ince every 3-4 weeks or so. This year, we decided to leave part of it to grow. The amount of insects in there was astounishing, so the patch stayed uncut between June and two weeks ago. The rain transfromed it ibto something less than pretty. Turned out the grass underneath is prettier than before. Next we gonna repeat the same thing with a different patch.

Did this for No-Mow-May. Left some patches unmowed for that month (we got a lot of rain in May this year). Lots of diversity in those patches. It was kind of hard to mow them in June - had to use the weed-eater first. Left a couple of the patches longer into July. Neighbor across the street almost came unhinged. Tried to explain that it was helping polinators... but it was a waste of breath.

Lucky us we don't have of those neighbors, and basically cannot get them. No HOAs or similar shenenigans were we live, even the city leaves large patches in parks unmowed until automn in some places.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#62

Post by InitialLastName »

bombcar wrote: post #2

Hmm, the St Croix is low but not lower than historical lows from years past: https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?gage=stlm5&wf... (The St Croix is 1% of the total discharge of the Mississippi.)

It annoys me to no end (in a tiny way) that there are two St Croix rivers along borders in the US.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#63

Post by bluGill »

nightski wrote: post #53
ericmay wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea but we're so far on the extreme of slash and burn and pouring chemicals on lawns that it's not even worth considering at this point concerns of habitation. It's just not even on the radar in terms of things that we need to bother caring about for the foreseeable future (100+ years minimum).

Pouring chemicals? Maybe a few do but I only apply one application of pre-emergent a year and then one application of fertilizer in the fall. That's not really pouring chemicals. In fact nature seems to thrive in our lawn.

Those few though in total mean your city is pouring more chemicals on per unit area that farmers who "pour chemical" on every acre. Of course farmers are talking about thousands of acres and so chemical prices add up, while the individual is only talking about 1/10th an acre or less, so the costs add up a lot slower. Thus the farmer has incentive to put on only what is needed, and not let it run away. (not that farmers do a good job here, but they are aware of the problem unlike city residents)

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#64

Post by bluGill »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #32
bombcar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of gives the lie to the "The US can't build anything anymore" - we do build things but we have all sorts of restrictions we wouldn't have operated under a hundred years ago. Back then we would have just built a whole new bridge somewhere nearby and then probably detonated the old one.

Nobody says that the US literally cant build anything anymore. The sentiment, backed by data, is that it is vastly more expensive and slower to build than in the past. This makes it hard to justify attempting a project at all. This analysis [1] shows that building tunnels in the US costs 10X more than in Norway, and 3X the average for the countries studied. Obviously, this means that with the same government budget,…

Just to make it worse, often the things we are talking about are areas where network effects matter so the more you build the better the return on investment. Or in our case because we can afford to build so little our return on investment will be much less than it could be if we build more.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#65

Post by Metacelsus »

hinkley wrote: post #9

If you ever have a friend or family member who is trying to get around wetland conservation laws, they are contributing to the shrinking of our river systems. Water retention capacity in upper watersheds directly contribute to average river flow, which is very easy to show by the behavior of streams. Deserts are self-reinforcing systems where the heat pushes clouds up or away from them. Wet, cool forests draw in more…

And the Supreme Court will probably gut those laws in the near future.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#66

Post by MooMooMilkParty »

DavidPeiffer wrote: post #4

If you ever have a chance, I highly recommend going near a port and watching operations. I used to live near the Mississippi River in Iowa, and it was always impressive to see the barge traffic and think about the sheer volume of product moving. South of St. Louis, the barge tows can be up to 45 barges. Visiting Savanah, Georgia and watching the ships come and go was also impressive. There's a bridge that was built i…

Related I also gotta recommend "Uncommon Carriers" by John McPhee. It's got a chapter that follows a barge operator on the Illinois river that's pretty great.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#67

Post by dredmorbius »

bombcar wrote: post #22
ravedave5 wrote: post #13

This article has no details on causes. Minnesota has had a dry summer, and the driest September on record. Most streams/rivers in central/south MN are low. https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/river_levels/index.html

The flow of the Mississippi after leaving Minnesota is no where near the lowest recorded: https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=arx&gage=... Low Water Records for Mississippi River at Lansing (1) 3.39 ft on 03/13/1938 (2) 4.19 ft on 01/23/1944 (3) 6.09 ft on 11/27/1942 (4) 6.34 ft on 02/04/1943 (5) 6.58 ft on 01/17/1945 (6) 6.76 ft on 08/14/1941 (7) 6.92 ft on 10/28/1940 (8) 6.94 ft on 01/27/1957 Current…

Typo?

Should that read "is now where", "is not where", or ... ?

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#69

Post by hinkley »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #5

How can the article not mention that it ebbs and flows? They're making it alarmist sounding when it's just the natural state of the river.

Complex systems tend to fishtail when they're about to collapse. Peak output can go up while averages are declining.

Re: Shrinking Mississippi River Puts American Farm Trade at Risks

#70

Post by denimnerd42 »

ericmay wrote: post #59
nightski wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are so many products because people are ignorant and just want an easy fix. It's pure laziness and has nothing to do with having a healthy lawn. There's a lot of money in laziness :) A healthy lawn really doesn't require that much from a chemical standpoint, but it take effort to figure out what it needs and you have to do things at the right time. In fact, the healthier the lawn the less weed killers you need…

I definitely agree with you there, but even a healthy lawn is still a lawn, which is still a bit of a problem. Outside of insects in the ground not much can live there. You need a variety of bushes, trees, herbs, flowers, and other types of plants to create a healthy ecosystem there. A lawn simply can't provide that.

that’s the historical point of a lawn. no one wants pests near their home.
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