Many folks do not understand the urgency of our nation’s water supply or the issues concerning soil void of nutrients. These are serious problems for agriculture, drinking water, and we are slowly polluting our civilizations around the world, the runoff is going into the sea and causing a terrible problem. Saltwater intrusion and empty aquifers, along with rivers and lakes depleted are of grave concern. But what can be done?
An interesting case study is the Ventura County, CA coastal area, where they pumped out too much water and salt water intrusion from the ocean filled all the fresh water wells with salt water, destroying the crops and soil. Bummer there is like 50 feet of top soil there, probably the best Strawberries in the World were grown there, full of rich nutrients. So, they diverted river water into the underground aquifers and after 10-years things are back to normal, but some fear they still pump out too much ground water.
The Mississippi River Mouth is a problem, once it was a huge river delta teaming with life and nutrients, however, when you channel that level of water flow it acts like a Jacuzzi jet blasting away anything there. Being a pilot I study erosion topography when I fly, you know as a hobby, you can see the changes and it’s obvious we have a problem out there.
Erosion, water flows, and all these things can be put back to their natural states, and we can create natural states elsewhere; I believe it’s all fixable? As I study US Droughts, weather, erosion, water flows, nature etc, it seems that we are making obvious mistakes as we try to force human views onto the natural patterns, and thus, we end up with the law of unintended consequences. We need better policies.
