THE FREAKING MISSISSIPPI RIVER IS DRYING UP.

There's some drastic and startling environmental changes happening in a very short period of time. It would be nice to know if it's a temporary phenomenon or the "new normal." But it's troubling.

https://apnews.com/article/business-minnesota-environment-laws-aquifers-a6e6840186e39760a57d99e2c452411d

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota regulators have ordered Enbridge to pay more than $3 million for allegedly violating state environmental law by piercing a groundwater aquifer during construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline replacement.

The state Department of Natural Resources said Enbridge, while working near Clearbrook in January, dug too deeply into the ground and pierced an artesian aquifer, which resulted in a 24 million gallon groundwater leak.

“Enbridge’s actions are a clear violation of state law, and also of the public trust,” said Barb Naramore, DNR deputy commissioner. “That is why we are using all of the tools in our authority to address the situation.”

Now we can just walk to this cool island!

yesterday on people being happy to find relics of the Civil War, Confederate items, on the dry riverbed.

I remember in the Rush Limbaugh days he would make stupid comments about how global warming could benefit places in northern US. I think he said something like "Hey we will be able grow citrus in Wisconsin!"

…being grown in Montana.

...Air Force and we spent 4 long winters at K.I. Sawyer in the UP.

That was enough for a lifetime. I don't ever want to go back.

Two different friends have fruiting peach trees; I'm growing seedlings from them. Another friend has fruiting pawpaws; I'm also growing seedlings from them along with the older ones I'm growing from a Chicago seed source. I have nut-bearing hybrid chestnuts now in my yard, from an orchard in Iowa, and persimmon seedlings I started from a friend growing them in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum now has mature, nut-bearing pecans of all things. They also have decent sized bald cypress trees, tupelos, American beech and Carolina silverbell.

These are all species more associated with Southern/Appalachian type geographic areas. Even the hardiest populations used to peter out around mid-Iowa or Illinois. I've even got some sweet gum, Osage orange, flowering dogwood and sycamore trees I'm trialing here for winter hardiness. They aren't supposed to survive, but some are going on year 3 with no dieback.

And then there are the redbuds, tulip poplars and magnolias. My God, they're adapting well here to our warming climate. I've got hundreds of those from local seed ready to go into the woods next spring. I'm already seeing them spread on their own now.

If you've gardened for more than a decade, the reality of climate change is inescapable.

and winters more mild.

We have not had a hard frost yet.

I just mowed my lawn on October 28th.

Latest I have ever done it.

... in reality. Farms, ranches, and feedlots can not operate without water. These real world problems
should not be "political problems" but treated as science, ecology, agricultural, and resource problems.

BTW One of the many things that President Biden has done that will help the farmers in the Midwest
and great plains was that he gave an E.O. to protect the Prairie Potholes and other wetlands that recharge
the ground water such as the Ogallala Aquifer.



These wetlands recharge the ground water, fix carbon, protect native insects, critters, plants, and give migratory waterfowl
habitat. This was one of President Joe's most important actions.

The righties are still mischaracterizing the pulling of the XL permit to that of shutting down the existing Keystone. They are always telling lies and leaving out most of the story.

And privatization of water. Check stocks.That and housing.

The Southwestern part of the United States is fucked
🤦🏾‍♀️

To divert the Mississippi River water west?

For now?

Missouri River is down too, but not quite like this, I don’t think. I do know I have been seeing stories on local news from barge companies saying they may not be able to move products on MO River at some point because the river is down.

Canceled its visit to St Paul. They were concerned about the depth if they came this far up river and didn't want to risk being unable to return.

being like small floating cities that dump her waste where they gp (and kill sealife) it is a blessing that it was cancelled. I was none too happy to see Viking doing that as well as now Arctic trips.
Just check out the algae growth progressing fast on most rivers including the Mississippi.

It looks like something that was close to where I lived as a kid.

Wow, that’s both cool and very disturbing.

spent some time sitting by the fox. it was high, and flowing rapidly. but the area has had good rain most of the summer.
i get lake mich water, but i still hesitate to use a lot of it. rarely use my hottub. i've started thinking of using too much water as sending it to flush the gulf. think i'll have a bath tonight, and feed the mississippi.

if we don't get some heavy rain soon!

https://m.

Enjoy your “freedom”!

Dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor hitting Earth.

This time around, we humans have done everything possible to destroy the environment which keeps us alive.

Perhaps, in a few million years, the Earth will have healed itself and a more intelligent species will evolve, understand the preciousness of their environment, and thrive.

The earth will continue along just fine. Te biosphere, hydrosphere and climate systems will adjust to the "new normal". Any critters that wish to, or are able to, may adjust, or not, as they see fit. That includes human critters. The Earth will go on just fine.

then remembered that we humans have built nuclear and chemical plants that will release their toxins once they are no longer maintained by a vanished human race.
We are a cancer on this planet.

It’s our ONLY hope. Solar, wind and electric cars won’t cut it.

Only humans foul their own nests

Too bad we only have one planet to consume

I do believe indigenous peoples will be among the few humans who make it.

For obvious reasons.

Is it insanity to stockpile deadly medicinals?

(Rhetorical question)

depredations of capitalism. Rivers dry up, the climate warms, storms are worse and there are more of them.

In the meantime, small-spirited, hateful and greedy people have unleashed what the Bard called 'the dogs of war' and what the bible calls the four Horsemen - plague, war, hunger and death. Not to be apocalyptic here, you understand, but we ourselves are bringing these 'horsemen', these 'dogs of war' upon ourselves with our greed, racism, hate, fear and short-sightedness.

Yet, even China recognized it should curb its population.

The FIRST is capitalism. Let me explain: we see ads on TV, the classic is a law office telling us about the Camp Lajeaune water lawsuit and lamenting 'profits over people.'

'Profits over people' is not just a left-wing trope. It is an actual legal precedent, brought forth in a MI Supreme Court ruling in 1919 against Henry Ford. It seems Ford raised the wages of his people on the factory floor so they could afford to buy the cars they made. The Dodge brothers sued Ford on the basis that these 'excessive wages' were irresponsible because they deprived them of PROFITS to which they were entitled as shareholders. And they WON.

Officially, this doctrine is called 'Shareholder Primacy' and what it means on the ground is that if you are the CEO of a publicly traded company, your ONLY job is to protect and increase shareholder profits. Period. So, your first act will be to bust the union, if there is one. You will also cut corners on benefits, try and steal the pension fund if you can legally get away with it, turn a blind eye to any wage theft, and compromise safety on the floor. You will also challenge every workers comp claim, and fight against any legislation or regulation designed to help workers. And you will spend capital to automate as much as possible.

As to consumers, you will cut costs by using less costly (and lower quality) materials, and shrink the size of the packaging but leave the price the same (Brits call this 'shrinkflation'). Also, if your product is dangerous, if it hurts a few people sometimes (think Ford Pinto and J&J talc), you will do a cost/benefit analysis and make a decision as to whether it is better FOR SHAREHOLDER PROFITS to simply pay off the people who sue or recall the product and incur the cost of fixing it. Seriously. We can find a number of examples of this.

Concerning the environment, the CEO of the publicly held company will foul the environment as much as they can get away with because environmental damage the company does not have to pay for is called an 'externality.' And, if there is a spill, the company will work hard with members of Congress they have corrupted with campaign donations to pass the cost of cleanup onto the taxpayers so SHAREHOLDER PROFITS aren't hurt in any way. Ever wonder why Republicans apologized publicly to British Petroleum after its massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? They wanted to pass the cost of cleanup onto us taxpayers, that's why. And that darned Obama instead made BP pay $20 billion.

This is coupled with the Chicago supply-side (we call it 'trickle down') economics which holds that if you cut taxes for corporations, they will create so many new jobs that the greater number of workers paying payroll taxes will offset the corporate tax shortfall. Now, think that through - this is a systematic transfer of wealth (oooh! A wealth REDISTRIBUTION). Essentially, it puts more of the burden (at this point 86% of the burden) of running the federal government on to taxpayers, while corporations saw their tax contribution to the federal government go from ~35% back in the 1960s and 70s down to 6.8% today. Maybe even lower - I haven't looked at this data for a couple years.

Ah, you ask...how to these scamps get away with stealing us blind like this?

If you obtain and read the memorandum Lewis Powell wrote to the US Chamber of Commerce at its request way back in 1971, you will get some good insight. It is colloquially known as the 'Powell Manifesto,' and lays out the entire plan for a corporate/Republican 'news' (propaganda) network by building out talk radio, and creating a Republican 'news' network. This is why operatives like Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney had the snake Reagan kill the old Fairness Doctrine in 1987. This pocket veto opened the door for Fox 'News' and later the growth of massive right-wing syndicates like the Sinclair Media Group who gobble up local channels and force the newscasters to read national news from their scripts. Also, have you noticed that networks like CNN no longer take emails from us? The Hill and Huffington Post cut out comments? There is a reason, and it is that the monied groups (I lovingly call them billionaire parasites, and every billionare really IS a failure in tax policy) push back on truth HARD, and they do not want readers to realize that a large number of Americans don't agree with the content - both 'factual' and polemic.

This is why the right-wing's (it is called NeoLiberalism, don't you know - why? Maybe to fool us) mantra is 'privatize, deregulate and gut the New Deal. Lately, we have heard that key Republicans have promised to shut down the government if Democrats don't agree to massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare, have we not?

And, of course, we can round all this off with the constant drumbeat that government is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad...Reagan also started this by saying that the government isn't the solution, it's the problem. This is why some of the right wing-nuts hate government so very virulantly - they do not see, due to exposure to YEARS of propaganda, that the real enemy is the billionaire parasites and Shareholder Primacy.

So ends my soliloquy on capitalism. Now to population.

The SECOND factor I brought up was overpopulation. The earth could still support us but if you go to sources like World Counts https://www.theworldcounts.com/, you will see that around 9 million people die per year of hunger related causes in the face of trillions in amassed wealth (by the few), and that we need 1.82 planet earths presently to support us all.

So, yeah. Capitalism and its attendent pollution (lots of info on that in World Counts) and the carbon induced climate change that threatens to make this planet uninhabitable is one factor, and overpopulation another.

When, we wonder, will our species GROW up, put aside pride, greed, anger, hate, war, and all the rest, and start organizing around keeping the earth in good order, controlling our population growth, and ensuring that people have enough.

Remember John Lennon - You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

You are spot on correct on every point. Thank you.

(Reminds me of the old days here ar Democratic Underground.)

Evidence:

Simple chemistry – When we burn carbon-based materials, carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted (research beginning in the 1900s).

Basic accounting of what we burn, and therefore how much CO2 we emit (data collection beginning in the 1970s).

Measuring CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and trapped in ice to find they are increasing, with levels higher than anything we've seen in nearly a million years (measurements beginning in the 1950s).

Chemical analysis of the atmospheric CO2 that reveals the increase is coming from burning fossil fuels (research beginning in the 1950s).

Basic physics that shows us that CO2 absorbs heat (research beginning in the 1820s).

Monitoring climate conditions to find that the air, sea and land is warming, as we would expect with rising greenhouse gas emissions; as a response, ice is melting and sea level is rising (research beginning in the 1930s).

Ruling out natural factors that can influence climate like the sun and ocean cycles (research beginning in the 1830s).

Employing computer models to run experiments of natural versus human-influenced simulations of Earth (research beginning in the 1960s).

Consensus among scientists who consider all previous lines of evidence and make their own conclusions (polling beginning in the 1990s).

Sadly, there are still many people who don't believe we are causing this.

Streams up here in headwater country are low too. We had a big 1,000 year flood in June and now we are hoping for a lot of snowpack this winter. The severe heat all summer fouled our freshwater ponds and lakes with algal blooms that inhibited fishing due to the stress on the fish. Most fishing up here is sport fishing and many of our rivers had multiple restrictions all summer due to high water temps.

We'll soon be able to drive down the Mississippi.

Because ya know everything bad is their fault!

Shortage

Lake Mead, is disappearing
The Great Salt lakes are disappearing
And the Mississippi river I guess that's disappearing too

And what's the wealthy and our government doing about it
Well they're making sure all the money flows to the wealthy 1%

Good luck surviving in a country with no water
🤷🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

Groundwater decline and depletion will be a serious issue

It had an adundance of life there. Released methane will disperse around the world. Just like the the methane released from the thawing of the permafrost in the tundra regions of the far north.

I've read there is a possibility with feedback loops that the oceans could evaporate and the water could escape the atmosphere. Www.arctic-news.blogspot.com

The spring should return the river to normal levels. Apparently there is a convergence of drought areas causing the dramatic drops.

I'm NOT saying it isn't significant. It's just that the river scientists see it as a temporary condition.

Delivering goods by water is far, far more efficient than truck or rail, especially if that truck or train has to climb hills. One of the lesser-known naturally-occurring advantages is that the US has as many miles of navigable waterways, including the coasts, as the rest of the world combined.

Obviously, the Mississippi system is a huge part of that.

and unload it in New Orleans, all via the rivers. And vice versa, of course.

The complexity of the system is mind boggling.

It only took less than 100 miles of canal building to connect the Black Sea to the Baltic, and both to the Volga.

[link:https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2022/08/14/sending-mississippi-water-west-feasible-experts-weigh/10282030002/|]


Tell me again, this isn't massive climate change.

low water screws up shipping and agriculture for a lot of America.

…so water levels there are heavily dependent on the flow upstream (north) of there, including tributaries like the Missouri, Illinois, and Des Moines Rivers.

To flood (or dry up) the Lower Mississippi (downstream/south of Cairo, IL, and its confluence with the Ohio), there needs to be a change in the Ohio basin.

Remember the Flood of ‘93? Just about everything in the Upper Mississippi basin flooded, but there was nothing in the Lower Mississippi: no flooding in/around Memphis, Vicksburg, Greenville, New Orleans, etc (and the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t have to open the spillway north of New Orleans). That’s because the Lower Mississippi is more reactive to what’s going on in the Ohio River Basin since more water goes into the Lower Mississippi from the Ohio than the Upper Mississippi (if you stand at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, more water is passing by you on your left—from the Ohio—than your right).

In ‘93, the Ohio Basin was in a drought, so no flooding in the Lower Mississippi.

as it runs to the east of that island. A photo taken right at the southern tip of the rock looking east would give an entirely different story.

This is sensationalism at the very least and click bait at the most. Sure it's concerning, but it isn't unprecedented.

Welcome to DU!

... problem w/the Mississippi. If these kinds of really low water levels were common then the old
boats and barges that sunk clear back to prior to the civil war would have been exposed before
now. And all the rivers that feed into the Mississippi river drainage basin are they going to be able
to recharge the ground water along their banks if their levels drop too.

It is the ghost forests of cedar trees in New Jersey along the coast, it is areas the size of 2 or 3
city blocks of peat and permafrost exploding in Siberia releasing tons of methane as the ground
warms up, it is the crashing of the crab populations in the Bering Sea as the ocean warms, it is the
Po River in Italy, it is ground level forest fires in the boreal forests around lake Superior (normally
you have a lower level that is almost always damp with rotting logs, ferns, moss, and wet shit),
it is the world wide crashing of the earth's insect populations, it is with the rising sea levels as
the world's ice melts that salt water is now working it's way into former fresh/brackish water in
the rivers & wetlands, and as the temps rise white tail deer move north into "moose country"
in northern Minnesota bringing their diseases with them (brain worm???) and the moose populations
are crashing.

The science of higher concentration of CO2 holding heat goes back to more than >220 years ago.

Here's a story from about ten years ago when the river was also low enough to walk out to: https://www.semissourian.com/gallery/12793

Over in the Netherlands, it's not as critical as it is here, but from the vast refineries at Rotterdam, oil barges can't make it much farther south than Duisburg. That means that it has to be brought down here (Düsseldorf) and points south (Köln, the Hessian cities like Wiesbaden and Frankfurt, Strasbourg in eastern France and the northern tip of Switzerland at Basel) by truck, which is way more cumbersome and expensive.

Huge rain storms about a month ago made things better for a couple of weeks, but that was only a temporary relief. Temperatures here in the Rheinland are way above normal for the end of October. The norm is between 5° and 12° and daytime temperatures here haven't been below 20° (68°F) all week. This portends for disaster next spring, when the glacial melts down south in the Alps that feed the Rhein don't give up enough water to ensure a steady flow.

what flooded a few years back is not safe from flooding now just because the water is low.
I can just suspect developers eyeing land that they should not.

Indications are a snow winter in the upper midwest.

out west is dry midwest is wacky

seen some incredible flooding in the last couple of years. Where we are mid-State, we are pretty much at normal precipitation levels as compared to the rest of the State. There is algae all around on many parts of the Mississippi particularly I backwaters that support life. Being on the flyway am sure it contributes to poor immune systems and avian flu on the bird species.

As an aside, it is no wonder wealthy are buying up properties in Duluth area and building million dollar condos since it is a usable port connected to the sea with great advantages to carry out mined and logged products should protections fail more.

My 6 uncles farm between St. Cloud and Little Falls, and all were bragging about their awesome gardens and crops. And here I am only 120 miles south and 10" below normal for precipitation. My land looks like crap. The farmers here are creating dust storms as they harvest and plow right now, and yields suck.

Groundwater has been disappearing for over 50 years in large parts of the US - mostly the Midwest and Western states.

I feel very lucky to be living in southwest Pennsylvania, where our seasonal rains are just as plentiful now as what I remember from my childhood (more than 50 years ago.) We have groundwater aquifers as well as aboveground rivers that are plentiful, and most of them feed into the Ohio River or else the Susquehanna/Delaware/Chesapeake basin. We are blessed in Pennsylvania with plentiful water, however the oil industry (namely the fracking extractors) have damaged to our aquifers and private wells. The damage is far worse in Texas and Oklahoma, however I guess that's another subject for another day.

These hurricanes and big storms come in over the eastern states causing floods and damage, however one shouldn't assume it's helping our aquifers. The water runs off quickly rather than absorb into the ground, as it would during a slow-moving rainstorm. It's those regular rains that must come back, and the recent climate changes are preventing those rains, in many cases.

Right on the border lines of the Great Lakes Aquifer.

Time to seal it off.

So this guy also has ideas about desalinization plants in deserts to create more clean drinking water and shift climate cooler by moving water to dry zones.


BUT he also thinks when these oil pipelines are decommissioned or have to be upgraded, why not just clean them out and use them to move water from dams when floods are pending to decrease the water level so we don't get the floods and dry areas get extra water. Win win and when these dry areas get water they start helping balance out the weather as well.