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Open thread
- By Phillip Brownlee
- Posted Aug. 22, 2006 at 3:54 p.m.
- Filed under Open thread
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28 Comments
Interesting observation — after the rains off and on for several days, the Arkansas River showed a fairly healthy flow past downtown Wichita’s Hyatt Hotel. However, already today (Tuesday), the sandbars are again showing and you could probably walk across the river and not take the bridge!
Quote of the Day:
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: “O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.” And God granted it.-Voltaire
Viva La Raza Blanco!!
You know that their’s a lack of water when grass is growing on the sandbars that is knee high. Check out the river farther to the north or the south where it isn’t so regulated by the dams to make it look pretty downtown.
Channelizing the River and its tributaries feeds a boom/bust cycle in water level. We need to be conserving water in the upper reaches of the basins; that will both alleviate flooding and provide baseline flow.
I went to Colorado a few years ago and saw this magnificient river pouring out of the Rockies.
Imagine my surprise when I found out it was the ARKANSAS! The same one that forms big mud puddles in the center of our fair city.
The Arkansas is sucked dry before it even makes it to the Kansas border. The de facto headwaters are in Great Bend.
Modern agriculture = fossile fuels + fossile water for low prices to farmers and high prices to consumers and unsustainability for the environment.
We can do better than that . . .
My suggestion about how to avoid double posting your messages: When after typing your message and clicking on “post,” you receive a box with random letters asking you to retype them to prove you are not an electronic robot — disregard it. Do not type in the letters. Just exit the thread and I believe your message will post once rather than two or more times, making you look like an idiot.
I believe double posting is the result of the EAGLE’s opinion editors gathered around a green felt-covered table, under a single yellow light bulb, high above the streets of Wichita, playing with bloggers’ messages for laughs.
JWink,
I type the letters in the box and have no problem. Must be you GUYS.
CapnAmerica: You mentioned the defacto headwater line of the Arkansas River is now at Great Bend … not in the Rocky Mountains as it was in historical times. I suspect that dry/wet line is slowly moving eastward towards Hutchinson and then Wichita.
Fortunately, Wichita doesn’t rely directly on the Arkansas River for drinking water. I suspect Hutchinson and other cities up and down the river might depend on the Arkansas for drinking water.
Wichita receives its drinking water from two main sources, the Equiss (sp?) underground acquifer located south of Halstead and also from Cheney Lake in northwestern Sedgwick County. Cheney Lake is, in turn, fed from the north branch of the Ninnescah River which begins in or near Stafford County. Incidentally, the south branch of the Ninnescah River begins in Pratt County and is the river that Highway 54 criss-crosses west of Kingman.
I suspect the water in these branches of the Ninnescah River as well as the Chickaskia River and the water that enters the Arkansas River near Gt. Bend is generally seepage from the ancient Ogalala underground acquifer in western Kansas. It’s common knowledge that the Ogalala acquifer is being depleted for agricultural, industrial and municipal uses in western Kansas.
I recently talked with Jerry Blain (spelling?), a civil engineer in Wichita’s Water Department, whose job involves planning for future water needs. He told me the City of Wichita has a means of gradually recharging the Equess beds near Halstead from water gathered during excess rains.
This water situation needs immediate attention from our state government.
JWink! They purposely have the water level low on the Arkansas River downtown because of the Keeper of the Plains project and the accompany bridgework. Once complete, they will raise the dam near Lincoln street and the water will be back to normal.
Joke of the Day:
How many central bankers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: None, they simply declare darkness to be the new standard.
V.L.R.B!!
Scary way to start the day… I found myself agreeing with Ian on that one.But hey, even a broken clock’s right twice a day…
Ninnescah:
Pronounced NIN-eh-scah
NOT ni-NEH-scah
From what I’ve been told since I was a small child, it means clear water. Could be a myth though.
Good article this morning in the Wichita EAGLE about the Cheyenne Bottoms wetlands (marshy area!) near Great Bend. Its an amazing natural resource for Kansas. Finally more water from recent rains. Lets hope this is a trend there and for Kansas. We also need to be recharging our underground acquifers from excess rain water.
JWink…
The City Water Department uses a totally unfair method of calculating water bills. If you haven’t researched it, all the people in Wichita should.
The average winter consumption (AWC) is calculated as an average of the bills rendered in the months of December, January, February, and March. The AWC becomes your base and anything over that amount you are charged extra for. So, if you conserve water in the winter (or have a fire like I did), you are severely punished when you try to keep your plants watered during the summer. My water bill went from $80 in July to $635 in August. This is crazy!! But when you call “Customer Service”, it’s like “Sorry.. we can’t help you.. we are a monopoly.. we don’t have to help you”!
Kansassam: I haven’t researched water bills but I will look at mine. But I recommend you go to City Hall, 8th floor, which is the Water Department and talk to someone face to face. There is obviously something wrong with your bill that should be corrected. Good luck.
Now for something totally Different
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2325188,00.html
Police question Israeli President over sex allegationsBy Philippe Naughton and agencies in JerusalemPolice questioned Moshe Katsav, the Israeli President, today over allegations of sexual harassment and corruption, including an accusation that he coerced a former female employee into having sex with him.
Israeli news reports suggested that police have already gathered enough evidence to indict Mr Katsav, which could force his resignation even though he has immunity from prosecution during his seven-year term. If so, he would be the second consecutive Israeli head of state to be forced from office by scandal.
—–
JWink..
If you know your neighbors, compare bills… it’s amazing, I use less water than my neighbor, but my bill is always higher. All because of the AWC calculation…
Oh.. and another thing… we are charged .00424 per gallon over base…. golf courses are charged .001 per gallon.
Things that make me think hmmmmm?
Are golf courses enviromentally friendly?
Roo Haa – it depends on a number of factors. All too often they are heavy users of pesticides and herbicides; particularly on greens. A golf course CAN be environmentally friendly; in particular a Scottish style course can be situated such that it can be inundated during high water and help provide temporary storage.
Jimmy Carter has an interview with the German newsweekly Der Speigel (The Mirror), which appeared in their Aug 15 issue.
Carter: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God’s ideas and God’s premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong.
And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases — as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world — it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant.
Another thing is that a fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.
And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them — which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern.
And, of course, fundamentalists don’t believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it’s just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.”
So, I guess no one will be admitting any time soon that the hate amendment was a mistake?
See any similarities in the above description to the prices, tm, outlander, and the other fundies here?
heheheheh. Busted.
kfg
Don’t count your purple chickens before they are hatched.
Hey, Ian–
I got two questions for you:
1. I watched “American History X” last night. What did you think of it?
2. In your line of work, if a non-white or Muslim or Jew wants to use your services, do you tell them you they should just get the hell out of this “white man’s” country?
Inquiring minds want to know . . .
KFGrrl–
Whoa! good post!
Pretty much sums up what we’re dealing with, doesn’t it?
Marines to recall troops on involuntary basis for Iraq, Afghanistan
August 22, 2006 – The U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday it has been authorized to recall thousands of Marines to active duty, primarily because of a shortage of volunteers for duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number of Marines who may be forced back into service in the coming years as the military battles the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next several months.This is the first time the Marines have had to use the involuntary recall since the early days of the Iraq combat. The Army has ordered back about 14,000 soldiers since the start of the war.
Marine Col. Guy A. Stratton, head of the manpower mobilization section, estimated that there is a current shortfall of about 1,200 Marines needed to fill positions in upcoming unit deployments.
******
Thanks to the Bush lay-offs (see Ford), there should be plenty of people desperate enough for work to keep our “volunteer” military in business.
The water “awc” thing is actually easy to beat. Just leave some water (inside) all day a couple days a month during the winter. Raises the AWC without having much impact on your bill…yet makes summer watering much less expensive.
Simple.
Raptor…
Exactly what I had intended to try…long showers, fill the hot tub.. Unfortunately we had a fire and I had ZERO water usage during Dec, Jan, Feb and March. Of course that “was not their problem”…. No Mercy!!
great post kfg. good to see you back.
Don’t tell me Ian works for Primerica?Or whatever the Amway of financial services is called now.
Hello,When I was 15 yrs old I gave the Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephens a beer from the back of a slow moving pick-up truck full of teenagers driving around drinking beer during a small town annual festival. Bob Dole and Nancy K. were in office.What happened to the good old days?Today if I were to mention that I drank beer as a teenager some a-hole righty would label me as what is wrong with family values.