Monday, April 18, 2005
They are nuts: Deforestation for water
This idea is so incredibly stupid that I need theasaurus to find enough words for how breath-takingly dumb it is. Log the headleand of a river to that the more rainwater enters the river system.
This is a recipe for the destruction of the river system. The headland forests slow the influx of water to the river system moderating the peak/trough flow of the river insuring steadier river flow. Logging the headlands will increase the likelihood of catastropic flooding. As well, erosion will increase, adding silt to the river which will fill the reservoirs downstream. Those reservoirs that cost billions to build... useless. Maybe they shouldn't water the grass.
Jax
An unwillingness to reconsider the values of a society was one of Jared Diamond's reason behind the collapse of Greenland Norse and the Easter Island monument builders. Given the fight over traditional values south of the border I suspect this will get ugly.
Still struggling with drought on the Colorado River despite a winter of bountiful storms in the Southwest, water managers are dusting off provocative ideas for filling the river - among them, logging mountainsides to wring more runoff out of national forests and seeding clouds to pull more snow out of the sky. . . Environmentalists say the answer to growing demand is more conservation and more efficient allocation of existing supplies, not efforts to squeeze more water out of the ecosystem. "Those are ludicrous," said Jennifer Pitt of Environmental Defense's Colorado office. "We're going to cut down our national forests so we can water our lawns on the front range?" (Link)
This is a recipe for the destruction of the river system. The headland forests slow the influx of water to the river system moderating the peak/trough flow of the river insuring steadier river flow. Logging the headlands will increase the likelihood of catastropic flooding. As well, erosion will increase, adding silt to the river which will fill the reservoirs downstream. Those reservoirs that cost billions to build... useless. Maybe they shouldn't water the grass.
Jax
An unwillingness to reconsider the values of a society was one of Jared Diamond's reason behind the collapse of Greenland Norse and the Easter Island monument builders. Given the fight over traditional values south of the border I suspect this will get ugly.
Still struggling with drought on the Colorado River despite a winter of bountiful storms in the Southwest, water managers are dusting off provocative ideas for filling the river - among them, logging mountainsides to wring more runoff out of national forests and seeding clouds to pull more snow out of the sky. . . Environmentalists say the answer to growing demand is more conservation and more efficient allocation of existing supplies, not efforts to squeeze more water out of the ecosystem. "Those are ludicrous," said Jennifer Pitt of Environmental Defense's Colorado office. "We're going to cut down our national forests so we can water our lawns on the front range?" (Link)
