Water from the Great Lakes or Pacific NW

[espringers]

i think fargo would disagree that they have essentially unlimited supplies of water.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Doesn't WF get some of their water from wells and some from the Cheyenne river ? I can imagine Cheyenne level must be down quite a bit ?

 

[Lycanthrope]

i think fargo would disagree that they have essentially unlimited supplies of water.

Unless the red is lower than Ive ever seen it before, that would be an easy argument to win... Course that water is a lot nastier than the nice blue water of the Missouri! What they would probably mean by that statement is they have limited resources and dont want to invest in the infrastructure needed to process more water, but its there if they want to use it.

 

[guywhofishes]

None of Fargo's local rivers are mtn fed... so when you have a regional drought when you rely on small rivers you're in deep doodoo.

 

[lunkerslayer]

another reason why the only viable option is to some how tunnel water over the continental divide is because the aquafers in the red river valley have to high salinity level to be able to make drinking water. To be able to bring water from the Missouri river basin to the red river valley you would think the water would need to be treated somehow before the water would be allowed into the Sheyenne river?

 

[guywhofishes]

A while back someone tried to sneak a pipeline in from I believe Lake Michigan. He got caught and they shut him down.

Still processing....

 

[martinslanding]

another reason why the only viable option is to some how tunnel water over the continental divide is because the aquafers in the red river valley have to high salinity level to be able to make drinking water. To be able to bring water from the Missouri river basin to the red river valley you would think the water would need to be treated somehow before the water would be allowed into the Sheyenne river?

I know when they opened the Devils Lake outlet, Valley City had to put quite a bit into their water treatment plant to handle the new water

 

[johnr]

Cabo San Lucas gets like one inch of rain a year, they created fresh water out of the ocean. Not sure why that cant be done everywhere?

 

[lunkerslayer]

Cabo San Lucas gets like one inch of rain a year, they created fresh water out of the ocean. Not sure why that cant be done everywhere?

Desalination is very expensive to operate that's why it's much easier to make fresh water out of raw sewage.

 

[espringers]

And they have very reliable solar power down there to make it work

 

[PrairieGhost]

Desalination to water the golf course in Aruba cost them six million dollars a year.

 

[NDSportsman]

Putting water on your lawn is no more a waste than breathing oxygen, actually less, because the water still remains water after you put it on the lawn. Only time it would be wasteful is if there was a limited amount available, meaning, you are taking water away from someone that wants to drink it or bathe with it, but in the case of fargo and bismarck, we have essentially unlimited supplies of water, constrained only by our mechanical ability to process it, which of course takes some resources, but the water isnt the limiting factor in that equation...

Sorry for the rant, but when people complain about wasting water, it sets me off a bit!

You obviously don't understand how or where Fargo gets it's water or what a severe drought would do to it's supply. Fargo primarily draws it's water from the Red River. The Red has indeed been dry at points in it's not so distant past, the most recent was the early 1900's. They also are able to draw water from the Sheyenne and pump it to the Red in times of low water in the Red. There's approximately a 1 year supply of water stored in Lake Ashtabula that is available to Fargo thru this process. An extreme drought in this part of the country is not unheard of and could jeopardize those water supplies fairly easily. Why do you think they even started a Missouri River diversion plan to begin with? The point is there's no damn reason to water your grass during a time of drought. Grass is meant to go dormant during these types of conditions. It's not dead and will come back when the moisture returns. I'd prefer to have water to drink then green grass to mow. Sorry for the rant but when people would rather water their fucking grass than worry about drinking water it sets me off a bit!

 

[snow1]

Cabo San Lucas gets like one inch of rain a year, they created fresh water out of the ocean. Not sure why that cant be done everywhere?

yeah jr but they're water gives one the shit's,so bad your afraid to fart.

 

[That guy]

Is the proposal for a Water pipe from McClusky canal to East north dakota still in the works?
State water board allowed for more water to be used for irrigation and was considering building a Water treatment plant to pipe water to Eastern north dakota.

They are working on it few miles outside of Cooperstown to go into the river then into Ashtabula.

 

[ndlongshot]

None of Fargo's local rivers are mtn fed... so when you have a regional drought when you rely on small rivers you're in deep doodoo.

And nearly the entire RRV is drained in some fashion or another. Maybe they should catch some of their annual precip in the spring when they accelerate that water downstream as fast as possible. "get it off my land, dont care where it goes"......Until everyone floods.....or we have a drought.....orrrr, errrr, where was i going with this?

 

[Lycanthrope]

You obviously don't understand how or where Fargo gets it's water or what a severe drought would do to it's supply. Fargo primarily draws it's water from the Red River. The Red has indeed been dry at points in it's not so distant past, the most recent was the early 1900's. They also are able to draw water from the Sheyenne and pump it to the Red in times of low water in the Red. There's approximately a 1 year supply of water stored in Lake Ashtabula that is available to Fargo thru this process. An extreme drought in this part of the country is not unheard of and could jeopardize those water supplies fairly easily. Why do you think they even started a Missouri River diversion plan to begin with? The point is there's no damn reason to water your grass during a time of drought. Grass is meant to go dormant during these types of conditions. It's not dead and will come back when the moisture returns. I'd prefer to have water to drink then green grass to mow. Sorry for the rant but when people would rather water their fucking grass than worry about drinking water it sets me off a bit!

I wasnt referring to a severe drought situation, but not using water that is flowing through the red doesnt actually SAVE it for later. Its use it or lose it essentially. When/if the red runs dry, or close to it, the situation would change significantly.

 

[ndlongshot]

And nearly the entire RRV is drained in some fashion or another. Maybe they should catch some of their annual precip in the spring when they accelerate that water downstream as fast as possible. "get it off my land, dont care where it goes"......Until everyone floods.....or we have a drought.....orrrr, errrr, where was i going with this?

I almost forgot. "Could the taxpayers please build us a pipeline from the Mighty Mo? Pretty please? we cant afford it but someone else can.....suppose its bout time to go drain that back 40."

 

[lunkerslayer]

I almost forgot. "Could the taxpayers please build us a pipeline from the Mighty Mo? Pretty please? we cant afford it but someone else can.....suppose its bout time to go drain that back 40."

Red River to some extent already holds back water, there are a few dozen or so reservoirs farther west before the water makes its way into the red River Valley. There's not much else can be done today when it goes to holding water then what been done so far. Only other viable option is to bring water from some where else.
Also many communities have water piped in from other areas Langdon is an example that gets water from a well out of the sheyanne reservoir. So every community is provided with water from the same water line that is used until it reaches Langdon.

- - - Updated - - -

They are working on it few miles outside of Cooperstown to go into the river then into Ashtabula.

Do you know or read somewhere that discusses the treatment process of the Missouri River water?

 

[Allen]

Doesn't WF get some of their water from wells and some from the Cheyenne river ? I can imagine Cheyenne level must be down quite a bit ?

Yes, West Fargo does get water from wells. The problem here though is that what is generally called the West Fargo Aquifer (it's broken down into a few different aquifers that kind of behave individually) is buried under 60-90 ft of clay. So this aquifer system is essentially a buried remnant of sands left over from the glaciation and Lake Agassiz times. Being buried under all of that clay leaves recharge to be an almost non-player in water availability. Thus, the water that is in the West Fargo Aquifer system is essentially a bank account with no income and a lot of outgo.

At this point it is foolish to continue to regularly use the WF aquifer since it's water levels just continue to fall. It should probably be left as a reserve/backup to a surface water supply (the Sheyenne River). The problem with doing that is we generally use different water treatment techniques for surface water versus groundwater.

- - - Updated - - -

And nearly the entire RRV is drained in some fashion or another. Maybe they should catch some of their annual precip in the spring when they accelerate that water downstream as fast as possible. "get it off my land, dont care where it goes"......Until everyone floods.....or we have a drought.....orrrr, errrr, where was i going with this?

It's been looked at, but if you've been to the RRV, one of the first things that kind of grabs your attention is just how flat of a "valley" it really is. So where exactly would a person build a new water supply reservoir of any size? One of the possible solutions for a water supply feature was to build a large retention structure through excavation in the Fargo area. The problem with this solution was one of water quality. Any feature like this would be relatively shallow and go through substantial evaporative concentration of naturally occurring salts and contaminants.


Another water supply concept was one I lovingly called the re-flush. It was a pipeline that would take RR water from somewhere north of Grand Forks and transport it back to either the Sheyenne, or the Fargo area. Expensive, yes. Would it work, yes. Do people like their water supply coming from downstream of their sanitary sewers, not so much.

 

[Migrator Man]

So if the mega drought starts how long do you think it would take to actually rush to finish the Garrison Diversion Project? Screw treaties and international lawsuits when it comes to emergency water shortages!