Things not going well at Yellowstone (flooding)

[crash_davis 23115]

Why don't we just come up with more efficient, economically friendly ways to desalinate salt water and then pipe it across the nation. It's going to come to that eventually.

[Orange&White 5539]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

Each color gradation is 1 inch plus or minus in average annual rainfall over the last 30 years. Much of the West and Southwest are fucked, especially as it gets hotter and results in higher rates of evaporation.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/08/24/climate/warmer-wetter-world.html

This is kinda my point, along with what phd said; at some point, the cost of NOT doing it will outweigh the cost of doing it. 

I never claimed it would be cheap or easy, but at some point it will become necessary for places like San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Austin to survive.

If you can do this with oil/NG, you can do it with water cheaper and with fewer safety requirements and public dispute. The people that need the water will eventually be forced to pay the cost of it.

Just think how much impact would be felt by building a 600 starter line from Arkansas over to Central and West Texas.

[jdhorn92 1558]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I have worked with and hunt with an old water guy, and he has a great expression -- "water is free.  It falls from the sky.  It's the catching it and moving it to where you want it to be that costs you out the ass."

I capture rain water in 2-45 gallon buckets attached to 2 downspouts and use gravity/fall and garden hose to water my plants.  Of course I live where we get 60" a year and the capture of rainwater is not illegal.

[Pato del Muerto 52608]

Yeah was it Kissinger that said something that must be done eventually should be done immediately?

that’s a bit of a short term look, as eventually the sun will burn out but we don’t need to be worrying about finding another one right now, but water is probably something that fits that statement. 

[jdhorn92 1558]

11 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

Why don't we just come up with more efficient, economically friendly ways to desalinate salt water and then pipe it across the nation. It's going to come to that eventually.

60 Minutes did a story on this 5-10 years ago, ill edit/link if i can find it.

[Brisketexan 105383]

9 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

If you can do this with oil/NG, you can do it with water cheaper and with fewer safety requirements and public dispute.

Ummmmm......ROI matters.  Like, a lot.  An oil pipeline pays off because a gallon of oil is worth (right now, today) $2.85.  Even when oil is cheap -- say, $50 a barrel, it's still worth over $1 per gallon.  

So, oil is $2.85 a gallon.  Large utilities in Texas, selling treated water wholesale, are charging $3....per THOUSAND gallons.  The wholesale value of water is around 1/1000th that of oil.  That makes the ROI on a pipeline a BIT lower than for an oil pipeline.

Sure, the cost of water is going to go up -- infrastructure, even repairing and maintaining existing infrastructure, costs money.  But imagine your water bill being even 10X what it is today.  Every American would scream to high heaven.

[Foosters 17889]

14 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Ummmmm......ROI matters.  Like, a lot.  An oil pipeline pays off because a gallon of oil is worth (right now, today) $2.85.  Even when oil is cheap -- say, $50 a barrel, it's still worth over $1 per gallon.  

So, oil is $2.85 a gallon.  Large utilities in Texas, selling treated water wholesale, are charging $3....per THOUSAND gallons.  The wholesale value of water is around 1/1000th that of oil.  That makes the ROI on a pipeline a BIT lower than for an oil pipeline.

Sure, the cost of water is going to go up -- infrastructure, even repairing and maintaining existing infrastructure, costs money.  But imagine your water bill being even 10X what it is today.  Every American would scream to high heaven.

Do most public works go through the ROI calculator? 

[Orange&White 5539]

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Ummmmm......ROI matters.  Like, a lot.  An oil pipeline pays off because a gallon of oil is worth (right now, today) $2.85.  Even when oil is cheap -- say, $50 a barrel, it's still worth over $1 per gallon.  

So, oil is $2.85 a gallon.  Large utilities in Texas, selling treated water wholesale, are charging $3....per THOUSAND gallons.  The wholesale value of water is around 1/1000th that of oil.  That makes the ROI on a pipeline a BIT lower than for an oil pipeline.

Sure, the cost of water is going to go up -- infrastructure, even repairing and maintaining existing infrastructure, costs money.  But imagine your water bill being even 10X what it is today.  Every American would scream to high heaven.

I don't feel like that is an apt comparison. The water that would be moved is flood water and there would be no cost extracting it from the ground, or paying mineral rights. 

[Samson's Wig 3194]

Whether or not we're talking about a public works project or private investment makes a big difference in terms of ROI relevance.    

Ole' T. Boone was working to build a pipeline for water to suck the panhandle dry before he kicked it.  Glad it never happened for the sake of folks out that way, but he saw profitability in some capacity. 

[Brisketexan 105383]

11 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Do most public works go through the ROI calculator? 

All the time.  There are a lot of projects that never get done because the upside to the end users isn't worth the cost.

9 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

I don't feel like that is an apt comparison. The water that would be moved is flood water and there would be no cost extracting it from the ground, or paying mineral rights. 

Your distinction doesn't matter.  Most water (especially surface water) doesn't have an actual commodity cost.  It's free, it falls from the sky.  Capture and transport is the entire cost, but you're also missing the point.  It's what it costs the end user that matters.  You have to recover the costs incurred to get the water to you.

In Texas, I can get wholesale water delivered to me for $3 per 1000 gallons, which covers all of the costs of transport etc.  

In someplace at the end of the massive infrastructure project you're talking about, the price to cover costs might end up being $30 per 1000 gallons.  Consumers will shriek about that, as they should.

[Foosters 17889]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

All the time.  There are a lot of projects that never get done because the upside to the end users isn't worth the cost.

 

I feel like this is not one of those scenarios with an easy ROI determination. California grows 40% of the nation's vegetables and 15% of all produce. Without SOME project, we're going to need to find a new place to grow food in the next 20 years.

[HRSchenker 2274]

Won't someone pleeease think of the water rights attorneys?! 

[Orange&White 5539]

20 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

All the time.  There are a lot of projects that never get done because the upside to the end users isn't worth the cost.

Your distinction doesn't matter.  Most water (especially surface water) doesn't have an actual commodity cost.  It's free, it falls from the sky.  Capture and transport is the entire cost, but you're also missing the point.  It's what it costs the end user that matters.  You have to recover the costs incurred to get the water to you.

In Texas, I can get wholesale water delivered to me for $3 per 1000 gallons, which covers all of the costs of transport etc.  

In someplace at the end of the massive infrastructure project you're talking about, the price to cover costs might end up being $30 per 1000 gallons.  Consumers will shriek about that, as they should.

If the only other option is to shut down the city of Phoenix or Austin or San Diego because there is simply not enough water for them to operate, the consumers can shriek all day, but they will pay the costs required. 

[JBJ 3666]

[Surly Bevo 25167]

That's one way to get a house boat

 

[Brisketexan 105383]

1 hour ago, Surly Bevo said:

That's one way to get a house boat

 

Things that are awesome: having a kick-ass house on a river in Montana.

Things that suck: watching that house float down the river to be smashed to pieces.

I avoided both that joy, and agony, and am at the same neutral spot on the ledger as that house owner.  WINNING.

[crash_davis 23115]

[Surly Bevo 25167]

45 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

 

[Biff Tannen 45745]

So anyway. Yellowstone. Is the Teddy Roosevelt arch in trouble?  That would suck to lose that. 

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4977]

So, instead of doing the environmentally friendly thing and not building or expanding massive cities where there is no water, we are discussing massively expensive public works projects so that everybody else can pay for a bunch of folks to live in the desert?

[Gatorubet 30321]

On 6/14/2022 at 10:00 AM, Brisketexan said:

Imagine a metric shitton of money.

Then quintuple it.  At that point, you would have the down payment just to conduct the initial feasibility studies for such a project.

Desalination is expensive.  Giant-ass pipelines are SUPER expensive.  Pumps are expensive.  Pumping is expensive.

What if we just thoughts and prayers the drought?

[Bevo 13601]

1 hour ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

So, instead of doing the environmentally friendly thing and not building or expanding massive cities where there is no water, we are discussing massively expensive public works projects so that everybody else can pay for a bunch of folks to live in the desert?

So no more LA, Phoenix, San Diego, Bakersfield, Tucson, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso? And I guess Albuquerque can stay because it gets the Rio Grande first.

[Js1 85587]

9 minutes ago, Bevo said:

So no more LA, Phoenix, San Diego, Bakersfield, Tucson, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso? And I guess Albuquerque can stay because it gets the Rio Grande first.

I guess we have to move them then. And not water. Sounds simple 

[Gatorubet 30321]

56 minutes ago, Js1 said:

I guess we have to move them then. And not water. Sounds simple 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Gatorubet

[sidis 9832]

On 6/14/2022 at 8:45 AM, Orange&White said:

Seems like this Country could figure out a way to create a network of pipes/canals, similar to the interstate system, that could move water from areas that are flooding to areas that are in drought. It doesn't seem that it would be cost prohibitive in relation to the value it would bring. Especially since it any given time we have plenty of areas that are in drought and plenty in flood and the costs to mitigate droughts and massive fires is so high.

If we can land shit on the moon, it seems like moving water should be easy.

i don't know why this is so amusing to me...and it has nothing to do with the validity or realistic nature of your post...but we all have some little attachments of what we think of when we see regular posters make a post.  and for you, the primary attachment i have to your handle is you providing a significant number of details in a conversation you and i had on tos about the constructions of a water pipeline from northwest travis county to central travis county years ago and what a boondoggle it was.

thus, i couldn't help but laugh to myself when i read this post.

[Bob Lives! 927]

Well this blows. Wondering if my Yellowstone/GT family RV trip in July/August needs to be re-routed to Arches/Zion at this point.


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[Js1 85587]

17 minutes ago, Bob Lives! said:

Well this blows. Wondering if my Yellowstone/GT family RV trip in July/August needs to be re-routed to Arches/Zion at this point.


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Add some extra tires to your RV and turn it it into a boat.

[UTexasFight 9539]

9 hours ago, Bob Lives! said:

Well this blows. Wondering if my Yellowstone/GT family RV trip in July/August needs to be re-routed to Arches/Zion at this point.


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It’d be an extra day from Yellowstone, but go Glacier.

idk where you’re coming from but trying to get out of Texas heat and going to arches/Zion doesn’t sound that fun 

 

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

Diverting water from the Missouri watershed to the Colorado basin would be a feast-or-famine (mostly famine) scenario.

The flows into the Missouri are only adequate if the snowpack in the Rockies is tremendous or the rainfall in semi-arid MT/ND/SD/NE is much higher than normal. It is common to have the states with the large reservoirs to be bitching to the Army Corps of Engineers about how they are managing discharges. Some years, there isn't enough water in the reservoirs to operate the hydroelectric generators at anywhere near full capacity without draining those reservoirs to levels that ruin the fisheries. Even the larger rivers feeding the Missouri are reduced to creeks by July many years.

Any excess water is very seasonal and short lived. Extremely wet years like 2011 are generational. The ACOE sometimes gets accused of illegally holding back too much water in the reservoirs to alleviate flooding on the Mississippi, but that is fairly rare.

There would be tremendous opposition to any water diversion project to the Colorado basin because of the threat of the tyranny of the majority. Once large metro areas get their claws into a system like that, the possibility of something like starving the Central Valley of water would sow too much distrust.

I can’t see any diversion project helping the areas served by the Colorado.  Something else needs to be done.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by ImissWallyPryor

[Pato del Muerto 52608]

On 6/16/2022 at 2:07 PM, Bob Lives! said:

Well this blows. Wondering if my Yellowstone/GT family RV trip in July/August needs to be re-routed to Arches/Zion at this point.


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I’m hearing closed all season.  

[hookemATL 11912]

Yellowstone is overrated af.
 

Drive all the way there and it’s either flooded out or some pedo bear in a fedora and tie with his little fuckcub slinks away with your pic a nic basket. Passssssss

[Biff Tannen 45745]

16 minutes ago, hookemATL said:

Yellowstone is overrated af.
 

Drive all the way there and it’s either flooded out or some pedo bear in a fedora and tie with his little fuckcub slinks away with your pic a nic basket. Passssssss

Yeah, no one should go anymore. Except me. 

[HornOnTheBayou 8947]

8 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I’m hearing closed all season.  

It's a good thing they have a lot of moose up there. They'll need them to tell everyone the park is closed.

[Captainant 27797]

6 hours ago, hookemATL said:

Yellowstone is overrated af.
 

Drive all the way there and it’s either flooded out or some pedo bear in a fedora and tie with his little fuckcub slinks away with your pic a nic basket. Passssssss

Lmao, I was in Yellowstone last September and didn't see a single bear OR picanic basket! Complete ripoff! 

[Bevo 13601]

7 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Lmao, I was in Yellowstone last September and didn't see a single bear OR picanic basket! Complete ripoff! 

I used to snowmobile around Christmas about every other year. It was wonderful. No one was there except lots of animals. You could only stay on the main roads but that was fine. Then environmentalists said that the snowmobiles were upsetting to the animals so they limited snowmobiling to tours. Since my joy was from being away from people and not being a part of some tour group with a bunch of yahoos and their kids, I haven't been back since. I kind of miss it though.