Re: Water H2O not needed for Solar

"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice" -- Rush

The billion + folks have chosen not to worry about clean water.  The water they have is apparently "good enough".  If it was not they'd take steps to improve the situation...

The AZ aquifer is dropping because Phoenix has been transformed over the past 30-40 years, by the influx of "foreigners" -- New Englanders, Mid Westerners, Washingtonians, all seeking escape from the cold & damp.

The big aquifer under the grain belt (whoops), is being exploited so we can donate food to feed those poor SOB's around the world (above) that don't have the clean water...

The 12 GPM is certainly a waste... I have no sympathy for a guy who runs his well dry in 10 years because he's stupid.  12 GPM is not going to affect an aquifer unless everybody starts doing it...

The toxic accumulation issue is where I'm gonna  disagree with you.  The sediments at the bottom of waterways that were polluted in the past are now sequestered.  LEAVE THEM ALONE!  The EPA beat up GE recently to dig up the problem in upstate NY... the problem had remedied itself.  The action did far more damage than doing nothing would have done.

I live on Long Island Sound.  When I was little we went to the beach... the water wasn't that clean and we stopped going.  By the late 70's it was dismal, we used to go hunting the sludge monster... (think "the Python boys")  It finally peaked when the hypoxia events were killing off the fish & lobster.

There were a lot of potential sources of blame, and when the sources of pollution were identified the water cleaned up relatively quickly.  Today the sound is pretty good  the Hg warnings on bluefish have been lifted, and other game fish & food fish have returned.

The garbage at the bottom is still there... but it's covered.  Digging it up to re-dump & re-bury it would be stupid on a colossal scale.   But our legislators are trying!?

My point is that trying to undo mistakes of the past is counter productive.  Stopping the mistakes that are happening now, shows immediate environmental benefits, and the challenges can spur new innovation.  But what was done was done.  Leave it alone if it's not bothering anyone anymore. 

As for the lake PCB's, those are in the water.  There's nothing that dredging can do *except* put more of them in the lakes.  There are 2 options;  wash the lakes, or accept the problem.  If it was me drawing domestic water from the contaminated source, I'd _choose_ to have a reverse osmosis unit or at least an activated carbon filter, on my drinking water faucet.

If I located a point of continuing contamination, there are methods of sequestering the pollution that are far more effective and cheaper than some of the nonsense they're doing now!  "Plasma Arc Thermal Decomposition" sounds really neat... In reality, it's really just pork-barrel spending!

So that's why I keep a little poison near my inkwell.  I'm all for cleaning up our collective acts, going forward!  Undoing the past, is far more problematic.