These pictures from NASA are being called “the quiet Chernobyl.” It is the Aral Sea as seen in 2000 and as seen this year. The massive decline of water levels is particularly evident from the black line showing the shoreline in the 1960s. In the United States and other cities, the world is facing a water crisis that is being given relatively low amount of attention. However, pictures like these show vividly our self-destructive impact on the environment.
The once vast central Asian lake was devastated during the Soviet period due to a water diversion project in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Now here is the shocker stat: the Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world. It now hold less than 10% of its original water volume.
The destruction of the lake created in 2000 two separate lakes known the Small and Large Seas. Within 12 months, however, the southern lake was gone. Fisheries and other business have collapsed and the blowing dust from the exposed lakebed is now a health hazard due to the agricultural chemicals that polluted the lake. It has changed the local weather — the loss of the moderating water mass has made the winters and summers harsher.
These pictures are the work of the team for the Terra satellite studies.
It is a cautionary tale for all countries, including this one, of the cascading problems associated with environmental pollution and industrial overuse.
Humans: Get out of deserts. Or you will get your just dessert. Or is it the other way around?
BarkinDog – Humans have been in the desert for thousands of years. The irrigation system built in Phoenix follows the plan built originally by the brilliant Hohokam.
I did not get the impression that, in this case, JT was blaming Global Warming:
“The once vast central Asian lake was devastated during the Soviet period due to a water diversion project in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.”
I was under the impression that the lake dried up from diversion and water mismanagement, and it was polluted due to the typical Soviet environmental blight. Socialists do not value the rights of individual people compared with the government, including the right to a clean environment.
For all that are offended regarding the reference to trolls; have you interrogated your host as well?
From JT’s Civility Rules:
“Like all sites, we attract trolls and juvenile posters who want to tear down the work of others. It is a sad reality of the Internet and the worst element of our species. Don’t feed the trolls. Ignore them. They are trolls and live under cyber bridges for a reason.”
Annie:
So, you think your own off topic guesses about other poster’s private lives are OK? Or do you agree that they are not OK?
Which comment by Olly are you referring to? The bit about if you disagree with the article you’ll be branded a Koch brother? Or the part about the HSR makes no sense? Because you’re right – those are wise words that I completely agree with!
And Karen, if you don’t want or like quarrels, don’t start them. OK?
max:
“The question is…WHO is still buying bottled water? Get a filter, stick it on your kitchen faucet, or buy a Brita or some other brand and put it in your refrigerator.”
I live on a well with a hardness of 38 grains. (Almost all CA water is hard.) So unless we want to repipe our house every 12 weeks, we use a water softener. I pay 4 times as much to use potassium salt so that I don’t contribute to sodium salt buildup. And I have a reverse osmosis filter that’s very good. However, the slightest bit of potassium makes the water taste incredibly bitter. So I still have to buy bottled water for drinking. I’ve had several water specialists come out, including big name companies, and it’s filtered the best I can get. I would really love not to need bottled water anymore. Hopefully one day that will work out.
Many suburban and urban people really do not understand the unique challenges of rural, ranching, and agricultural areas. That becomes a problem when legislation is originated from such a mindset that affects these areas.
Karen – you haven’t seen ‘hard’ water until you have lived in Arizona. I am not sure what our number is but I know that the water is eatable rather than drinkable. If you have a washing machine and want to keep it for any length of time a water softener is a necessity. Here we have dirt that doubles as concrete. 🙂
on 1, October 1, 2014 at 6:35 pmKaren S
Annie – just to clarify, you agree that there should not be off topic conversations, unless you are the source?
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In a word Karen, NO. Olly seems to have made a very insightful observation and comment early on in this thread. I think perhaps he noticed the same thing MANY of us here have and felt he needed to address it, which he did VERY well. Perhaps you could learn something from Olly’s very wise words.
@ Karen
Those are all great questions regarding the underground water, the source and the destination. Almost impossible to answer in most situations. The underground aquifers are often a mystery. In our particular area, there is a spring fed river. A very large spring fed river of which no one knows the source of the spring water. The government has done studies and has zero idea. It is suspected that the “source” of the water either originates high in the mountains from snowpac and glaciers OR….from Eastern Oregon where there are also several rivers that mysteriously sink into the ground and disappear.
So, if I am pumping water from our well to water the orchard, is it impacting the guy a mile down the road? Maybe. Maybe not. There is no way to tell. THIS is the big problem with the State stepping in and trying to regulate small time water usage. They have NO idea.
DBQ – “I’m in Calif. I live in an area where for many people, their well is the only available source of water. This will end badly.”
Me too. Between that and the stupid vacation train, these policies can really wreck an already struggling economy. I’d hate to see the loss of the rural way of life here.
Annie – just to clarify, you agree that there should not be off topic conversations, unless you are the source?
Personally, I feel that constructive off-topic posts can be interesting, but quarrels are not. My questioning your own off topic posts can be considered as contributing to the exact personal quarrels that I find so off-putting, and so I will abandon that line as non productive.
Maxcat – I am very aware of Nestle. They lease their water rights from an Indian tribe, the Morongo Reservation to bottle and sell water. The tribe has defended their right to that water, and claim that they have several natural spring sources. They say they have pulled back from using very much of a spring in a drier area, and are using alternate sources.
The Morongo are a wealthy tribe that owns casinos.
CA is the source of many water wars right now, including my area. Although there are no golf course losses that I am aware of, many family farms have dried up, that can’t lobby like corporate farms. Farmers had their private wells shut off and lost acres of fruit trees and land has gone fallow. People have had to sell or give away their horses, in a glutted distressed economy market, when their wells get shut off, capped, or just naturally dry up. That glut of horses works out quite well for horse slaughter buyers who ship to Canada or Mexico.
Wells can be over pockets of water, like underground lakes in stone caverns, or they can tap into underground rivers.
My personal feeling is that if the water is only under your property, it is yours. But if it, including the Morongo spring, contributes to a community of wells, then it is a shared resource.
Do you feel that the tribe should not own a spring that is on their property? Or that they should bottle and donate the water to the state? If it is a spring that does not contribute to any river or stream that empties into the DWP facility, but rather is contained on the reservation, is it not theirs?
My question is does the source of this spring contribute to other wells? In which case, their bottling operation could be drying up the wells of their neighbors, which is catastrophic. I live on a well, and am well aware of the Tragedy of the Commons when wells use shared water supplies. I do not have a shared well; our well and its source just serves our house and horses. However, if the water source is entirely on their own land, and does not connect with any other water supplies or wells, then it is their resource. This article basically questions whether it is fair to sell water for a profit during a drought, the implication being that water should be donated or sold for cost.
And believe it or not, the High Speed Rail Vacation Train to SF is pertinent to these water wars. The Corps of Engineers have stated that if they hit a water source while drilling tunnels for the train, they have to drain it dry. In a drought state. Isn’t that wonderful for the environment?
http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2014/07/12/nestle-arrowhead-tapping-water/12589267/
Arctic ice dwindled during a long summer! THE SKY IS FALLING!!
JT told me to ignore a certain person too! How funny!
Olly, I base my “ignoring” from personal experience and wise counsel from JT. I can be quixotic on some issues. But, I am a stark realists when it comes to people. And, some people are simply unstable, some hateful, some blind ideologues. And, one or two win the Triple Crown in that category. You’re a guy who doesn’t like being told what to do. I’m similar. But, I will keep speaking my mind as I know you will also. How about we hold this “ignoring” discussion in abeyance until after the first of the year sometime. Like yourself, I engaged all people when I arrived. After a year and a half I started a list. I’ve been here a little over 2 years now.I will not tell you to ignore people ever again. I will offer my counsel to others as a wise guy named idealist, did to me when I arrived. Feel free to tell me to go crap in my hat. I can take it.
Crypto Sporidium are parasites, BTW.
No Karen, when I spoke of medical marijauna abuse, I was responding to OFF TOPIC comments about “parasites” that some person kept posting. Perhaps it was due to marijauna abuse? It did NOT make any sense. I wonder what he was implying with that OFF TOPIC discussion of PARASITES in various threads for days on end. Do YOU know why he was discussing parasites in blog posts that had NOTHING to do with parasites? I found it very odd.
“Here in CA, they are starting to install meters on private wells, shutting them completely off if the owner uses “too much.””
I’m in Calif. I live in an area where for many people, their well is the only available source of water. This will end badly.
Annie – like all of your odd references to recreational pot use?
DBQ – that is a timely question. Here in CA, they are starting to install meters on private wells, shutting them completely off if the owner uses “too much.” The government just quietly usurped private water rights with zero compensation.
So, homeowners spend up to $60,000 to develop their well, but then they lost the rights to that water to the Department of Water and Power, which neither paid for the rights, developed the resource, nor does it provide them with water.
But, that’s socialism for you.
Ohhhhh, DBQ you must mean those commenters who almost daily make lengthy OFF TOPIC comments about past arguments with weekend guest bloggers who NO LONGER even comment here.