No use finger pointing. We'll be doing that until the sun burns out. I don't care how it's happening so much as that it's happening. All over the West the saline lakes are drying up- not only the GSL but lesser known lakes like my state's Lake Abert. Two obvious solutions. Dam up the outflow and/or Increase the inflow. Both difficult. The real solution is one people don't want to address: humans and their herds get out of the West and let the rivers and lakes shift for themselves! Kind of extreme I admit, but how else are we really gonna fix this mess?
I drive through the great Salt Lake Valley a couple of times a year on my way to Pocatello and I can't even image the economic and social devastation on that area if there were restrictions on growing animal feed. By the same token, SLC has become the Silicon Valley of the west. That too takes a lot of water in the manufacturing of chips. There are no easy answers, but I get the impression that there is a growing movement toward solving the problems instead of blaming "people caused climate change". If you have DishTV, try watching the RFD channel and see exactly what the ag business is doing to solve these never ending problems. Happy New Years!
I wonder what costs more?: a. Paying ranchers to shift ag practices and compensate them for it or b. the public health costs and biodiversity loss that comes from keep on keeping one.
Maya Angelou used to say "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." But I guess we gotta be open-minded to change because if we feel threatened by the suggestions to solve problems, our cognitive dissonance kicks in and our prefrontal cortexes turn off and we double down on keeping on. Also, as we learn more about the importance of protein for human health, I do wonder how we best grapple with the paradox of producing protein for a growing population. No solutions here. But I love it if some sort of Conservation Reserve Program could work here to compensate farmers and hire folks to do restoration work on would-be fallow fields.
Hay is also sucking the San Juan and Animas rivers dry. If you drive to Durango and Florida mesa in Colorado you notice all of the land that is flat or can be made flat is now being planted in alfalfa and hay. The only place you find sage and cedar now are on the sides of hills or the sides of valleys. There is one farm on a mesa top, east of the highway as you cross the state line, that has doubled the crop size. Also, we have agricultural crops and drinking water taking more of the San Juan River. There is no end for the gluttony of water. If the San Juan River system is 50% of the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (Lake Powell) then they are in real trouble for the future water. They need to forget about getting water from the San Juan River system in the future. However, there may be water available in the winter months unless they need to refill lake Navajo and the other agricultural lakes in SW Colorado.
I
No use finger pointing. We'll be doing that until the sun burns out. I don't care how it's happening so much as that it's happening. All over the West the saline lakes are drying up- not only the GSL but lesser known lakes like my state's Lake Abert. Two obvious solutions. Dam up the outflow and/or Increase the inflow. Both difficult. The real solution is one people don't want to address: humans and their herds get out of the West and let the rivers and lakes shift for themselves! Kind of extreme I admit, but how else are we really gonna fix this mess?
I drive through the great Salt Lake Valley a couple of times a year on my way to Pocatello and I can't even image the economic and social devastation on that area if there were restrictions on growing animal feed. By the same token, SLC has become the Silicon Valley of the west. That too takes a lot of water in the manufacturing of chips. There are no easy answers, but I get the impression that there is a growing movement toward solving the problems instead of blaming "people caused climate change". If you have DishTV, try watching the RFD channel and see exactly what the ag business is doing to solve these never ending problems. Happy New Years!
I wonder what costs more?: a. Paying ranchers to shift ag practices and compensate them for it or b. the public health costs and biodiversity loss that comes from keep on keeping one.
Maya Angelou used to say "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." But I guess we gotta be open-minded to change because if we feel threatened by the suggestions to solve problems, our cognitive dissonance kicks in and our prefrontal cortexes turn off and we double down on keeping on. Also, as we learn more about the importance of protein for human health, I do wonder how we best grapple with the paradox of producing protein for a growing population. No solutions here. But I love it if some sort of Conservation Reserve Program could work here to compensate farmers and hire folks to do restoration work on would-be fallow fields.
Hay is also sucking the San Juan and Animas rivers dry. If you drive to Durango and Florida mesa in Colorado you notice all of the land that is flat or can be made flat is now being planted in alfalfa and hay. The only place you find sage and cedar now are on the sides of hills or the sides of valleys. There is one farm on a mesa top, east of the highway as you cross the state line, that has doubled the crop size. Also, we have agricultural crops and drinking water taking more of the San Juan River. There is no end for the gluttony of water. If the San Juan River system is 50% of the Colorado River at Glen Canyon (Lake Powell) then they are in real trouble for the future water. They need to forget about getting water from the San Juan River system in the future. However, there may be water available in the winter months unless they need to refill lake Navajo and the other agricultural lakes in SW Colorado.
Those are a lot of bullet points negatively affecting the GSL water levels....