We got rain in California yesterday where I live. I know those of you reading this in Europe of even the East Coast might laugh an the excitement, but it is exciting. For the first time in a long time our hills are green and the wildflowers are starting to bloom. We had some rain a few weeks ago, yes, but it hasn't been enough to refill our dams or aquafers. The dams still have a long way to go. As for the local aquafer, the water companies are still restricting us as the saltwater intrusion continues (I live along the coast.) and one of our towns wells has had to stop pumping because it was contaminated with Chromium VI, a naturally occurring element in our area. There are still fears that we will run out of water in my local area by next September/October. Every rain brings the hope of pushing that date back further. If only we had some of that water from the snowfalls from the Midwest and East coasts! What a wonder that would be!
In the ancient world tunnels were made into mountains to underground springs/water table using a slightly sloped horizontal tunnel to connect several vertical shafts along the way. Gravity would take water along the tunnel, called qanat, to the fields or irrigation canals. The cool thing about qanats is that they still exist in areas like Iraq, so natural disasters like earthquakes, sandstorms, etc. haven't really effected some of them. Mankind has definitely done some damage. In college some of us used to think about ideas like this as we tried to solve California's visits with drought.
California has adapted ancient technology in the form of aqueducts and canals to help distribute water to different regions of the state. Impressive is that water must be pumped in certain places 2,882 feet high using different pumping stations. California is home to the world's highest water lift, where it is raised 1,926 feet!
So, if we are capable of so much, both in the ancient world and now, why do we suffer with droughts? We sometimes forget about water rights, state regulations, and cost effectiveness. However, shouldn't we keep dreaming, thinking "What if..." and challenging ourselves to think of ways to keep providing clean drinking water to our citizens, and helping those annually inundated by floods?
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