[HN Gopher] For the first time in four decades, the Rio Grande t...
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For the first time in four decades, the Rio Grande through
Albuquerque is dry
Author : mooreds
Score : 92 points
Date : 2022-07-22 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inkstain.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inkstain.net)
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| The Rio Grande is now neither a rio nor grande.
| Victerius wrote:
| The Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an
| empire.
|
| The People's Democratic Republic of Korea is neither of the
| people, nor a democracy, nor a republic.
|
| New Mexico is neither new nor Mexican.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > New Mexico is neither new nor Mexican.
|
| Is Mexico Mexican? I would have said no, just like water is
| not wet.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| New Mexico is in fact older than Mexico the country.
| lurquer wrote:
| Very clever.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Discuss amongst yourselves.
| owlninja wrote:
| Never sure where the HN cutoff is on comedic posts but
| thank you for also recognizing this is the Mike Myers as
| Linda Richman bit on SNL.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I have to disagree about Republic. It certainly is republic.
| The general Secretary of the WPK and President of the State
| Affairs have not named themselves kings.
| voz_ wrote:
| What is your point?
| tomcam wrote:
| The word new is not new. McDonald's isn't a McDonald. Wendy's
| isn't a Wendy. Microsoft is neither micro nor soft.
| [deleted]
| googlryas wrote:
| An important point here is that it is running dry
| "intentionally", because the water is otherwise being diverted
| for use.
| p_j_w wrote:
| Before we go claiming that this is a-okay, WHY is it being
| diverted for use? Have other sources dried up? If so, that
| would still be really bad.
| uoaei wrote:
| Yes. Lake Mead and reservoirs across the West half of the US
| are extremely low. Water originating from the Sierra Nevada
| range ended up at about 4% of the total water they would
| expect in a "normal" year.
|
| California's most serious suggestion to this problem is
| laughable -- cover open irrigation canals with solar panels
| to reduce evaporation losses. While it will technically
| achieve something, it is not addressing any part of the root
| of the problem: wasteful water use on wasteful crops such as
| almonds, as well as the privatization and nonstop extraction
| of groundwater by Nestle and other bottlers. We could point
| to beef as another incredible consumer of water (when
| accounting for the full food chain) so reducing beef
| husbandry would be good (replace beef in your diet with
| chicken and pork for a couple weeks and see if you miss it).
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| That would be healthier for people as well.
| DougMellon wrote:
| Article wont load for me but part of the issue is that New
| Mexico can't store any in reservoirs as they owe Texas water
| due to an interstate compact.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/albuquerque-droughts-weather-
| nort...
| p_j_w wrote:
| That article doesn't make things sound much better. It
| seems to pin the blame on persistent drought. The tactic of
| water being released from reservoirs upstream was used in
| the past as a band-aid over the symptoms of the drought,
| but isn't possible this year due to the water debt they
| have to Texas, as you mention.
| ccooffee wrote:
| Per the USGS gauge[1], the current flows are 21.3 cubic feet
| per second. The historical low for July 22 is from 1980 when it
| was 60.0. The flows of the Rio Grande through Albuquerque is
| controlled by the Cochiti Dam, about 50 miles upriver. The dam
| is currently at 42 feet full[2], and is currently discharging
| about 300 cubic feet per second[3] (and appears to run
| continuously). So in the 50 miles between Cochiti Dam and Alb,
| about 280 cfs are being lost.
|
| Maybe this is intentional diversion. But for what? I can only
| conceive of irrigation being the answer (but please call out
| other reasons). If it is just irrigation "intentionally"
| causing the river to run dry, that seems....really bad.
|
| Given Cochiti Lake's low level, it won't be long before you
| can't irrigate those crops, so even the "use" of the water will
| be wasted. (Perhaps the worst outcome would be to intentionally
| divert the water to grow crops, but to run out of water before
| the crops grow fully. Then you've wasted the water and gotten
| nothing for it.)
|
| [1] https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nm/nwis/uv?site_no=08330000 [2]
| https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nm/nwis/uv/?site_no=08317300&PARA...
| [3] https://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?08317400
| DougMellon wrote:
| Google map of the area: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.57008
| 51,-106.3533147,10454m/...
| ccooffee wrote:
| Oof! It is irrigated agriculture. :(
|
| Thanks for the link, didn't think of that.
| mcone wrote:
| This isn't true. I live in Albuquerque about 1/4 of a mile from
| the river and there's literally no water anywhere. The ditches
| are dry, the reservoirs in the northern part of the state are
| tapped out, and the Albuquerque Water Authority stopped
| diverting water from the Rio Grande several months ago.
| conradev wrote:
| It is being diverted before it gets to Albequerque
| mcone wrote:
| Some of it is, yes. But a lot of the water flowing through
| the Albuquerque stretch comes from the Colorado River
| basin. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Juan-
| Chama_Project
| DougMellon wrote:
| The entire Colorado River basin is essentially running at
| critical levels.
| MegaButts wrote:
| Doesn't that mean mcone is correct, and the water isn't
| being diverted intentionally? The implication from the
| original comment seems to be humans are doing this on
| purpose, but the retort from mcone is that's misleading
| because there is no water and we couldn't fill it if we
| wanted to.
|
| I am not an expert on this. I'm just reading the
| comments.
| [deleted]
| hirundo wrote:
| We're having an unusually wet year about 120 miles SW of
| Albuquerque, with a big monsoon cycle incoming now. We're not
| quite out of our long-term drought, but another couple of good
| storms would do it.
| Maursault wrote:
| On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power. Here, we must
| scrabble for desert power.
| novaRom wrote:
| Germany, Danube river has very low level currently. I cannot
| remember I saw like that ever. Probably the same observation in
| Austria/Hungary, can you confirm? This summer is really good,
| dry, warm, just like somewhere in Greece/Spain. Hopefully will be
| every summer like this in the future.
| aeyes wrote:
| Elbe is low but still looks ok, hunger stones [1] not yet
| visible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_stone
| jacquesm wrote:
| IJssel river in the Netherlands was lower three days ago than
| I have ever seen it myself.
| deanCommie wrote:
| ..."hopefully"???
|
| Hopefully you're cynically trolling about the incredibly
| difficult century ahead for humanity.
| pp19dd wrote:
| Think that was meant for the last part of the statement (dry
| heat) - summers in Germany can be very humid.
| voz_ wrote:
| Awful take. How are there so many bad takes on HN today. Is
| reddit down?
| p_j_w wrote:
| I dunno, GP's take seems more appropriate for Truth Social
| than reddit.
| spyremeown wrote:
| Hopefully? Are you completely insane? This may be a sign of
| something going majorly mental within our planet.
| [deleted]
| klyrs wrote:
| The actual problem with hoping for every summer to be like
| this one is that it's deliriously optimistic.
| leto_ii wrote:
| Can confirm from Romania. I found this on YouTube, for
| ilustration: https://youtu.be/KctTo0yqMnU?t=34 (you can skip
| around, naration is in Romanian, but the idea is pretty clear).
| Things are pretty crazy.
|
| > Hopefully will be every summer like this in the future.
|
| Be careful what you wish for...
| anonymousisme wrote:
| New Mexico was having massive flooding just a few weeks ago, but
| maybe not localized to Albuquerque.
| lp251 wrote:
| Mostly flash flooding in burn scars. Not really close to
| Albuquerque
| digdugdirk wrote:
| Has there been any research into what areas will be the canary in
| the coal mine for when things go _bad_ bad? Aquifers, rivers,
| lakes, etc - I 'm curious if it's possible to follow the
| watersheds from the continental divide and determine what the key
| choke points are.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Shallow wells running dry would be a pretty good early warning
| sign.
|
| See:
|
| https://theconversation.com/water-wells-are-at-risk-of-going...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I'm not sure what makes you think things aren't going _bad_ bad
| right now and people aren 't paying attention.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I think Bad bad will be a major metro loses reliable water
| service across their jurisdiction. It would be a major region
| of the US running out of basic foodstuffs across the board
| (though logistics of moving food is easier than water).
|
| The current disasters are amplifications and slow creeps of
| things we've seen before, heat wave, fire, drought.
| uoaei wrote:
| It's not going to be just one metro. Water planning and
| distribution focuses strongly on making sure pretty much
| everyone has at least some water. If water ever becomes
| _too_ scarce, everyone will feel it at once.
|
| The slow creep is the warning sign -- according to experts
| we should be doing a lot more than we currently are right
| now.
| throwtheacctawy wrote:
| jacquesm wrote:
| Typically water delivery is done to several 'tiers' of
| customers, where the top tier is consumers. Farmers sit
| below that and industry below that. This sort of thing
| will have massive effect, especially if it lasts longer
| than a few days or weeks, at some point vegetation will
| die off, cattle will die and people will start moving.
| throwtheacctawy wrote:
| parkingrift wrote:
| Everyone in that geographic area. We don't have any
| ability to move water across the country at present.
|
| Nor should we. There is no reason to build pipelines to
| send fresh water to the desert.
| crikeyjoe wrote:
| corrral wrote:
| I'd watch the various Great Plains aquifers. I think the main
| outcome of drying isn't going to be thirst, but hunger, and
| that's the area to keep your eye on for when that'll _really_
| kick into high gear. Those aquifers were on track to dry up
| _absent_ climate change, AFAIK, from severe overuse by
| agriculture.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Yes, very much, so:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer is what I
| think you're talking about.
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220351110 is
| depressing reading.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubian_Sandstone_Aquifer_Syste.
| .., also.
|
| Florida is also a large source of many crops, particularly
| off-season, and they are damaging the Florida aquifer through
| overuse which is being exacerbated by saltwater intrusion due
| to rising sea levels (rain falling over land creates
| hydrostatic pressure along the coasts): https://www.nationalg
| eographic.com/science/article/partner-c...
| enviclash wrote:
| This is a very good question. The world, and in particular the
| US and its local geographies, are very well interconnected. I
| think the "bad bad" is at the systemic level of these
| interconnections, no single element will point it out.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Move to coastal California. There's enough sun & ocean water to
| fall back to desalination if need be.
|
| I suspect Arizona will be screwed as they've had a housing
| surge without similar investment in securing new water sources.
| mdavidn wrote:
| Re: California, not if nimbyism prevails. The brine
| discharged from a desalination plant is an environmental
| concern.
|
| https://calcoasttimes.com/2022/05/14/california-coastal-
| comm...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Aside from nimbyism, replacing natural fresh water source
| with energy-intense desalination isn't a solution,
| especially not in the short term. We're already using way
| too much energy, and at the current rate of decarbonization
| it'll be decades to a century until climate change will be
| getting better. Solving the problems brought about by
| climate change with using more energy will just set us up
| for a dead spiral.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Residential use is a tiny % of total use. There is a _lot_ of
| unnecessary water use in agriculture, lawns, etc that would
| give before any individual resident is meaningfully affected.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| In our water district, we're already at 8 minutes per week
| of irrigation. With threats of going to 0 minutes per week.
| Normally we're allowed 45 minutes - 15 minutes, 3x a week.
|
| > that would give before any individual resident is
| meaningfully affected.
|
| I think we're a lot closer to this than you seem to think.
| jacquesm wrote:
| California has seen droughts before and is currently more at
| risk than ever before: https://drought.ca.gov/
| tootie wrote:
| The Colorado River Basin states are already in crisis mode. The
| governors just agreed to some emergency action that may head
| off the worst but drought conditions are expected to keep going
| so who knows if the reservoirs will recover.
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(page generated 2022-07-22 23:01 UTC)