The Colorado River and the High Plains Aquifer are drying up.

reply to post by MuzzleBreak


Yep you can thank T. Boone Pickens for that. Check him out. Quite the scum bag IMHO.

If you wanted to create a 100 mile long, 600 foot deep salt water lake in Death Valley, by siphoning Pacific Ocean water into it, you would have a problem with the process, since the valley itself is only 282 feet below sea level.

The solution to the problem would be to build a coffer dam say 650 feet high in the most appropriate location in the valley and siphon the water into it. Pumps would then be used to pump the water out of the coffer dam onto the valley floor. That way the depth of the lake could be increased beyond what air pressure would allow one to achieve if no coffer dam were used.

www.trimbleoutdoors.com...



The coffer dam would have to be carefully constructed, since it would become a permanent feature of the lake, used to top it up as evaporation processes and desalination processes removed water from the system.

It might be more cost effective to simply pump the water from the ocean into the valley. I kinda like the idea of the siphon though.

This would be a huge project, equivalent in scope to what was done at the Hoover Dam, perhaps even exceeding that project, when the siphoning system is thrown in.

Obviously the valley ecosystem would be changed completely. Would such a lake in that region produce enough evaporated moisture to change rainfall patterns in the Southwest? That would have to be studied.

Fish farming and brackish water agriculture would undoubtedly be possible at the new lake.

It is a very interesting idea, to me at least. I don't know if anyone has studied it in detail.

In 2004 the Death Valley area had a torrential rainfall by Death Valley standards.

In under a day they got somewhere close to 2 inches (!!!) of rain. The result was the re-emergence of the ancient glacial lake, Lake Manly, for a brief period, formed by run-off from the "heavy" rain.

A witness took pictures of the shallow lake, which can be seen at the following link.

www.scvresources.com...

I don’t have exact dates yet, but the lake appears to have existed from August 2004 to around May 2005. By June of 2005, the basin was dry.

The following picture shows precipitation data for Death Valley for the years 2004,2005,2006.

If you look at the rainfall figures in Death Valley for the period during which the lake existed, you can see an anomalous rise in precipitation, which then drops down again to lower figures after the lake had evaporated.

www.cnrfc.noaa.gov...



Obviously this is not science. Other factors may be involved, things I don't know about, but if the short lived, shallow Lake Manly did really have the effect of increasing the rainfall in the area, what would be the effect of a permanent, very large, very deep lake?

It is an interesting question.

Another issue is that there is a large underground aquifer in that area. That complicates matters, but that is beyond my competence to discuss.

farmers and populations that have provided the heartland crops through the 20th Century may be gone in the next decade or two

Yeah, but in the meantime we have idiots telling us to keep increasing our population.

Originally posted by CB328

farmers and populations that have provided the heartland crops through the 20th Century may be gone in the next decade or two

Yeah, but in the meantime we have idiots telling us to keep increasing our population.

Lol you realize that people wernt telling anyone to do that . It was post war . Everyone was happy to still be alive .

so there was lots of sex and they had a lot of kids.

But. Those kids will be passing soon (maybe) and the population of the u.s. In 20 years will be much less (maybe)

Its called the baby boom , check it out

I always take this sort of thing with a grain of salt...
South of here is a small town called Sierra Vista. The river went under ground in1879 or so, due to an earthquake. There is plenty of water, just underground.
Now there have been a number of groups always complaining about Fort Huachuca using up the water supplies...but these groups generally go back to a single realtor who wants to purchase the old Cavalry fort and build houses on it.
The was a doctor from California who would come out to Arizona and complain about the environment, water, air, the sound of military air craft...but you know, after it was found out his brother was the realtor trying to buy up all the land, he kind of went away.

As Alaska is still in winter mode (all that snow and ice) perhaps it would be cheaper to build a fresh water pipeline from Alaska to the western states? or fresh water sea going tankers if the icebacks don't like another pipeline thru their land?

Originally posted by Another_Nut

Originally posted by CB328

farmers and populations that have provided the heartland crops through the 20th Century may be gone in the next decade or two

Yeah, but in the meantime we have idiots telling us to keep increasing our population.

Lol you realize that people wernt telling anyone to do that . It was post war . Everyone was happy to still be alive .

so there was lots of sex and they had a lot of kids.

But. Those kids will be passing soon (maybe) and the population of the u.s. In 20 years will be much less (maybe)

Its called the baby boom , check it out

Immigration will soon cover any loss of baby boomers.

reply to post by Blarneystoner


Thats because they are draining lake Meade to keep the water in the river.

Originally posted by pikestaff

Originally posted by Another_Nut

Originally posted by CB328

farmers and populations that have provided the heartland crops through the 20th Century may be gone in the next decade or two

Yeah, but in the meantime we have idiots telling us to keep increasing our population.

Lol you realize that people wernt telling anyone to do that . It was post war . Everyone was happy to still be alive .

so there was lots of sex and they had a lot of kids.

But. Those kids will be passing soon (maybe) and the population of the u.s. In 20 years will be much less (maybe)

Its called the baby boom , check it out

Immigration will soon cover any loss of baby boomers.

Completely different idiots telling us to do completely different things. Lol.

And I wouldn't worry too much after we desalinate and irriadiate the oceans as a cure to our water woes we can just build a fence across the pacific desert. Lol

I was looking up things related to this topic.
I ran across this.
So for what its worth.

Great Lakes Conspiracy Theory Jesse Ventura

Originally posted by Black_Fox
I was looking up things related to this topic.
I ran across this.
So for what its worth.

Great Lakes Conspiracy Theory Jesse Ventura

The conspiracy is that Nestle and other companies want to suck water from the lakes for free and then sell it to you, in case you don't have time to watch.

www.aquatic.uoguelph.ca...

The St. Lawrence river is among the world's greatest river systems and has the highest annual discharge of any Canadian river at 447 cubic km per year. No other river in the world discharges more water into the Atlantic Ocean and only the Mississippi River has a greater discharge in North America.

Personally, I don't care if Great Lakes water is diverted INTELLIGENTLY south to the parched areas of the United States.

I should add that currently I am the only person in my country (of water hogs) that is of this opinion.

Memo to the world's oligarchs: Solving the world's problems PEACEFULLY is fun and interesting. You can get in on the fun too.