Hacker News Reader

Comment by rich_sasha | Hacker News Reader

There was also this project in USSR: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

So much water in that lake, right? But it went from 4th largest in the world to no lake.

It seems, in my subjective opinion based on reading the Wikipedia article, the engineering standards employed by the Soviets in the Aral project is subpar. Furthermore, the 'destruction' of the Aral sea, based on my reading of the article, is considered as an acceptable to the Soviets (they know that the Aral will shrunk). T

The letter proposed in this thread seems to understand the danger of the taking too much water and thus propose a reasonable limits of 2.5-5%. The limits could change based on a more detailed feasibility studies (which is the main point of the author, let's think about it.)

US engineering and attention to detail are, I agree, vastly different to the Soviet ones.

But concern for quality of environment for others vs corporate profit? Hmm not sure. The initial overuse of water resources in the West, endless stories of top soil and water table irreversible pollution with one chemical or other, or the reports that gas and oil companies had a full perspective in global warming in 1990s...

I'd agree, there possibly is an amount of water you could safely divert, and it is this kind of study that would determine it, but I'm not sure if the end result would reflect a sustainable solution.

That's a very good point! The feasibility studies could solve the engineering question but social/economic (not as in cost-benefit, but in which group/organization/corporation will have more priority) is much more harder to solve.

But in my personal guess, a strong NGO/political activism by CA could influence the canal for the better. After all, construction of such canal, aside from having the support of the Federal Government, would requires an interstate compact/agreement. California would probably impose a decent environmental standard. Furthermore, Southeast states would also impose a strong limitation on the waters they will agree to divert. Unlike China, US States has strong sovereignty on matter like this and it would probably lead to some kind of equilibrium on the 'sustainable' water diversion rate.

> The letter proposed in this thread seems to understand the danger of the taking too much water and thus propose a reasonable limits of 2.5-5%.

What happens when that becomes not enough?

Minor detail: it was 4th largest by surface volume, but 12th by volume.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com