In Sailor Song, Ken Kesey predicted that with global warming in the 21st century, Alaska will be the new agricultural leader. This hasn’t been proved wrong yet…
Soviets/Russians have long contemplated diverting the Ob River from Siberia to Central Asia. Pluses include: It could rescue the dead Amu Darya and Aral Sea. Minuses include: it could wreak global climatic weirdness.
There’s at least one Intel fab here in Hillsboro OR. Way back in the 80s or 90s, they cleaned up their discharge, only they did it too well. The water they discharged back into the river was too clean. It was causing problems for the aquatic life. It wouldn’t have been an issue if they hadn’t had so much discharge. And the river life did not really want the contaminates they removed, so they couldn’t fix it by leaving some of that stuff in the water. Don’t know what they did to fix that problem.
It may have just deluded the nitrogen levels that aren’t very high in creeks and rivers anyway
I looked around for any information on the problem but couldn’t find anything. It sorta sounds like the kind of thing where there was a real issue but the cause got garbled in the translation. Wouldn’t surprise me if it were something simple like that it needed more aeration.
Hillsboro does seem like where they are prototyping the reclamation technologies. I think they’re shooting for the 100% reclamation there first, with the rest of their fabs following suit later.
I assume you mean “diluted” there. And yes, that’s likely it.
It was a newspaper report, so quite likely they’d get the fine details wrong.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised. AIUI, when they’re going to a new manufacturing tech, they first build the manufacturing line in Hillsboro and then try to duplicate it exactly at their other plants.
Thermal pollution is a thing as well. Even if the water is the same chemistry, a few degrees can make a large difference to the ecosystem.
Quick scan for intel and the Tualatin River came up with references to needing to cool the discharge to meet federal standards. Apparently there was a proposal to raise a local lake 10-12 feet to allow for additional water to mix in to drop the discharge temperature.
The wastewater was probably de-ionized water at some point, so after taking the nasties out it’s probably like discharging distilled water, which in large quantities would screw up the chemical balance of the stream.
That’s what they told Konstantin Frank about the Finger Lakes.
I don’t know whether Ohio’s got an equivalent of Dr. Frank. But if not, they might get one.
Mrs. Martian and I really like Dr. Frank’s (dry) Rieslings but found the reds a bit on the thin side.
The BBC recently had a story about people in coastal California reclaiming water from the air; expensive but a doable system along the coast. This got me thinking about our air conditioners which cause an output of water as well. I live in a condo and my HVAC system just dumps this water into a drain near the furnace and water heater. I might only be in a condo that doesn’t produce a lot of water that could be reclaimed, but what about larger spaces such as offices and schools, manufacturing plants and so forth? Could these be a source of potable water that we aren’t using properly? What do they do with such water in Las Vegas or Phoenix? I wouldn’t know.
Figured I’d resurrect this thread to note that people are still pushing for water from the east to fix the west. I think the author should read this thread.
People in the Midwest are going to need that water to replenish their aquifers, like the Ogallala one.
Yeah, that proposed big concrete ditch would go right through drought-starved Texas and New Mexico. I’m guessing that not all the water would make it to the Colorado River.
Another point would be that perhaps agriculture needs to get more precise with watering. I remember driving across the midwest and seeing these giant wheeled irrigation line devices (or center pivots). They spray water on the crops, but one has to wonder how much evaporates before getting into the soil to help the crop. Wasteful of water, but cost effective to deliver if they don’t have to pay for aquifer water. I’ve read about drip irrigation, particularly in Israel (Or my relative’s backyard rose garden in Idaho). Obviously, I don’t see an easy way to do this with giant corn fields.
I saw a similar complaint about California farmers. They have some guaranteed quotas, but the problem with putting money into more efficient watering and not using your quota is it may be reduced, never to come back. (Sort of like civil service budget allocations). there’s no incentive to use less than your quota. Maybe that needs to change.
Right, turn the water to vapor that floats in the air, wait for it to travel you where you want, then precipitate the vapor and it will fall on the ground. Just put rain barrels all over the ground to catch the water and you’re set.
One other thing that Israel does is recycle 90% of its wastewater, with virtually all of it going to agriculture - 50% of the irrigation water used in this country is treated sewage. It’s not exactly drinkable, but it works just fine for growing plants. As a bonus, much less crap is dumped into the environment, contaminating freshwater sources.
I mean, the U.S. will get around to doing it too, eventually, if only because it’s cheaper than seawater desalination. Why not start now?
Yep, people are going to keep saying it from now until the world is a baking desert and they will never take no for an answer.
There is a whole class of such proposals for engineering projects that are not literally impossible but technologically so difficult, expensive, or wasteful that they’ll never come to pass. Space cities. Star ships. Underwater cities. Atlantic tunnels. Beamed power.
Their appeal is obvious and the success of previously “impossible” projects makes today’s scoffers look like the doubters of a century ago. Maybe - maybe - one of these will come into existence. The future is a long time. But nobody on this board will see it.
One point previous posters in this thread failed to mention with their discussion of growing crops in the Midwest, etc instead of the West is that people like to eat fresh fruits and vegetables year around. These don’t grow in the winter in the Midwest–but they do in places like Arizona.
There was a lengthy discussion of that proposal in Hacker News:
So, it comes down to which is more practical. Building greenhouses and supplemental lighting to grow these items in the Midwest, or building pipes and canals and pumps to move the water to the West.