Environmental topic of the day, wasted water

Just food for thought, but in the long term I think more projects need to be taken up and voted for that would help improve society as a whole.

Most decisions are made on a grand scale for short term economic reasons and not lasting effects.

Take our recent situation here in Texas, and the small percentage of lakes that are capable of producing hydro electric power.

If every damn in Texas had the capability, how much energy could we have created with all of the water movement we have now?

I'm sure it would be enough to save a significant amount of diesel and coal for later use.

Now don't get me wrong, obviously hydro electric power could not sustsin our entire electric grid all the time, I'm just speaking in how much of our limited resources could we have saved with the energy we wasted by water flowing through damns that could have bypothetically turned all of that energy into electricity.

Also flooding, we have some areas devistated by floods, and other areas still severely needing water.

The pipeline idea comes up often, and frankly it's a "pipe dream" because of the size of pipes and pumps needed to move a significant amount of water.

But it's just another add on to the idea, that planning on mostly short term economic reasons meets us in this suspended flood/drought and energy crunch stage we have been in all along.

Just the thought of the day

I don't think it would be cost efficient because most of the time the water wouldn't be flowing enough to do anything. We would be waiting for a near disaster, like this spring to use it.

Problem with the pipeline is once it is there, it is there. Think of past years how low our lakes were. Just think if a politician could make money pumping even more out to another area, what our lakes would have been.

I have always liked the pipeline idea, the problem is the cost of that effort and who is going to pay for it. Oil and gas pays for their pipelines because they make money from the product flowing thru, but the cost of water would have to increase exponentially to justify the cost to build the pipeline system necessary. The state wouldn't be able to raise taxes to get it done, because the people in areas that have water would never allow their representatives to support a tax on them to help out someone else, at least I doubt it.

Maybe instead of rolling back watering restrictions we keep them in place now and forever. Or make it a graduated scale based on usage. The more you use, the higher rate you pay. This money could go to help fund new water projects.

If you restrict watering then the water becomes stagnant and unhealthy.

Last year in Frisco and Plano in the summer they were opening fire plugs and draining water, they said since no one was watering the water had become stagnant.

and if water isn't used. the water departments have to add a surcharge in order to make their income quotas. if you use it, it costs x times the gallons used. if you use less it cost the same per gallon plus the surcharge so as to make the bill the same amount.