Where is our water coming

Folks who have read my blog in the past know that one of my concerns has to do with the availability of water. That in the same way we fret about petroleum and natural gas that the day will come when we will focus on why we are running out of water in the Southwest part of our country.

Even in areas where water is readily available may find their supplies threaten by gas well drilling fracking operations and changes in climate. The when you add in southwestern states talking about running pipe lines to get access to their water can make an individual very guarded about giving the water away.

I come from a long line of dry land farmers who didn’t make their crops because it didn’t rain. Therefore with that lineage you develop a sensitivity to available water supplies. So it wasn’t to surprising when this past thanksgiving I became involved in a conversation with my sister-in-law, who works for the USDA conservation corp.,  concerning a recent study that she read that said that according to study of growth rings of certain regional trees that this year has been one of the driest years since 1582.

Now add to that the fact that you live in a area that is dependent on water caught in impoundments (lakes) and realize that no rain means the lakes don’t fill up.  The question becomes at what time do you admit you made a mistake encouraging unrestricted growth and water intensive farming and landscape?

Right now there are parts of our state of Texas that has severely limited watering and water use and this during the time when we get the bulk of our rain in year. We have lakes that our down 10 to 15 ft. below normal leaving some of the pump stations high and dry.

So you say turn on the wells  and start using them. That sounds good until you realize several things. (1) The aquifers that most of these wells pull from have been so severely worked for irrigation of farms that they are already at a level below what some wells s pull from. (2) The water highly mineralized already has high levels of salination to the point of undrinkable.. (3) Heavy use of fertilizer, illicit dumping of chemicals, fracking chemicals used in gas wells, and insecticides have led to contamination of many of our water wells.

I can never forget a conversation I had with a local water dept employees who commented that they never drink the water but buy bottle water for their coffee and drinking. When I commented that they were kidding me they assured me they were not. What they hated the most were having to take down a water line feeding into the city and activating the wells because it meant that they meant they would be spending a week flushing out the lines once the outside water line was back in operation.

Let me ask this one question. If you are willing to allow your country’s leader’s to go to a immoral war to supposedly assure fuel for your SUV what would you do to assure you have life giving water to drink?

Well I have said enough for now. I just wanted to get folks to talking about it and thinking about how they use water.

Projects, Reading, Movies

Minimal time in the shop due to the holidays. Hope to make up for it in the upcoming week.

Same thing with the reading.

Movies were a different story Watched “Green Lantern” Reba didn’t like the way he flew. Otherwise it was a pretty good story.

“Walking Dead” nearing season end and the so is the intensity of the story line ramping up.  Can’t wait to see what they do.

A new series “Hell on Wheels” about the 19^th century building of the trans-continentlal railroad turning into a pretty good series. The corruption of our government isn’t something new if the series is to believed.