Saturday, May 14, 2011
A modest proposal
Repeating the headline catch of a few days ago. Today the Weather.com sidebar features another interesting juxtaposition.
The 'exceptional drought' turns out to be in Texas, especially around Houston.
The Morganza floodway is, of course, next door in Louisiana.
Polistra has a wild radical idea. Perhaps we could learn from Nature. Polistra has noticed near her Mill that beavers often build a sort of land-bridge across the creek, which holds back a large storage pond. What would happen if we carve a channel from the Mississippi and run it westward into Texas? We could then use the beaver technique to store some of this water in Texas when the Miss is running high, which happens every few years ... though rarely as high as this year. The stored water could then be used when Texas is short.
This would require a considerable amount of money and labor, so we'd have to bring home our soldiers from the 190 countries where they are currently sowing chaos and disorder, and assign them instead to create order in this country. Those with appropriate skills would work on the project or supervise civilian construction types who need the work.
The idea seems pretty damn obvious to Polistra, so she proposes calling it the Damn Obvious Idea, or just Damn for short. And the storage pond should be named to honor the Soldiers who performed loyally in our pointless wars, especially the reservists. Perhaps a good name, then, would be the Reserve War Memorial Pond, or just Reserve War for short.
And the whole project should be called Polistra's War Alternative, or PWA.
= = = = =
More seriously: Texas has a seacoast. There's absolutely no excuse for any area with a seacoast to be short of drinking water. Especially when the same area has lots of sun and lots of oil and lots of natural gas. Desalinate, for Christ's sweet sake. ¶ 4:57 PM
The 'exceptional drought' turns out to be in Texas, especially around Houston.
The Morganza floodway is, of course, next door in Louisiana.
Polistra has a wild radical idea. Perhaps we could learn from Nature. Polistra has noticed near her Mill that beavers often build a sort of land-bridge across the creek, which holds back a large storage pond. What would happen if we carve a channel from the Mississippi and run it westward into Texas? We could then use the beaver technique to store some of this water in Texas when the Miss is running high, which happens every few years ... though rarely as high as this year. The stored water could then be used when Texas is short.
This would require a considerable amount of money and labor, so we'd have to bring home our soldiers from the 190 countries where they are currently sowing chaos and disorder, and assign them instead to create order in this country. Those with appropriate skills would work on the project or supervise civilian construction types who need the work.
The idea seems pretty damn obvious to Polistra, so she proposes calling it the Damn Obvious Idea, or just Damn for short. And the storage pond should be named to honor the Soldiers who performed loyally in our pointless wars, especially the reservists. Perhaps a good name, then, would be the Reserve War Memorial Pond, or just Reserve War for short.
And the whole project should be called Polistra's War Alternative, or PWA.
= = = = =
More seriously: Texas has a seacoast. There's absolutely no excuse for any area with a seacoast to be short of drinking water. Especially when the same area has lots of sun and lots of oil and lots of natural gas. Desalinate, for Christ's sweet sake. ¶ 4:57 PM
