Your neighbors water

[lunkerslayer]

The idea of using the garrison diversion was that the water would eventually become cleaner over time,.seems to make sense in theory that when you haven't used a source of water that may be high in rust that if you run the water eventually it would flush out the line allowing the water to be less rusty by concentration.
It was only a theory since the diversion was never completed, people d0 remember when devils lake was low in the 80s east devils lake was white with alkali content.

 

[Allen]

Eventually, yes. But how many years that would take is something I would guess is in the range of 10, or more. That's an awful long time to not have potable water downstream of Tolna Coulee.

 

[Lycanthrope]

The problem with the Tolna coulee overflow is that the water would be coming from Stump Lake. Nobody in Valley City, Farhole, GF, or ???? wants water that saline as a drinking water source.

RO filters fix that problem easily enough... Doesnt Fargo RO filter the majority of its potable water?

 

[Allen]

One would be talking about flow of around a few thousand CFS. Does RO work? Absolutely, but a system setup to handle this would be in the billions of dollars in construction + O&M for the duration of the saline water.

Probably 10s of billions.

 

[Lycanthrope]

One would be talking about flow of around a few thousand CFS. Does RO work? Absolutely, but a system setup to handle this would be in the billions of dollars in construction + O&M for the duration of the saline water.

Probably 10s of billions.

Called fargo water treatment, they built a RO facility like 5 years ago. Guy I spoke with said the percentage they use varies depending on demand but during off peak seasons, they can supply the majority of fargos water as RO. He said the capability of the plant is about 18m gallons / day and use is often around 20 to 22 milllion gallons / day.

 

[lunkerslayer]

Yes perhaps it may have been sooner the 10 years or never fully bring down the salinity of the water coming out of stump lake. I remember fishing the bridges in the late 80s watching the foam from the salt water coat the sand and rocks on the wind swept side would get really bad later in the summer months. If anyone would like to see what that foam looks like stop down my the tolna Coulee dam the whole bottom of the dam spill way would be solid foam.

 

[Allen]

Called fargo water treatment, they built a RO facility like 5 years ago. Guy I spoke with said the percentage they use varies depending on demand but during off peak seasons, they can supply the majority of fargos water as RO. He said the capability of the plant is about 18m gallons / day and use is often around 20 to 22 milllion gallons / day.

Not all water treatment plants have the same design criteria even though they have roughly the same end goal for water quality. Since the Canadians and Minnetuckians have proven their willingness to sue ND and the federal government, this project would get stuck in the courts and environmental studies for decades.

So, let's say for the pure fun of it that ND and the federal government would agree to "treat" the water coming through the Tolna Coulee to satisfy the environmentalists and foreign interests (yes, Minnetucky is included in that for me). One would need to treat roughly 2,000 cfs (I vaguely remember that was the number tossed around as an input to DL).

2,000 cfs coming out of there would have to be RO'd for chemistry reasons, but you'd also have to install a water treatment plant similar to what is going in for NAWS to remove biota. Hey, I don't make the rules here, but that's what the courts and those who sued over the Red RIver Valley Water Supply and NAWS projects have sought and largely won through the courts and concessions made by ND and our federal government.

Anyway, 2,000 cfs equals 1,292,630,400 gallons of water per day. So, you would need a water treatment plant roughly 65 times the size of the Fargo one and it would also have to remove biota to the nine 9's according to Canada.

Oh yeah, and that doesn't deliver a single drop of drinking water. That's just what would be expected to happen if water were to come out of the east end of DL.

Before one gets all high and mighty and says the hell with Canada, the above is based on treaties with Canada and we need to remember that ratified treaties are considered the law of the land.

One should also remember that the whole idea behind this thread was one of not allowing your drain to affect your neighbor. Dumping fresh water onto someone else is one thing, dumping undrinkable and environment altering saline water is a whole 'nother thing.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Not all water treatment plants have the same design criteria even though they have roughly the same end goal for water quality. Since the Canadians and Minnetuckians have proven their willingness to sue ND and the federal government, this project would get stuck in the courts and environmental studies for decades.

So, let's say for the pure fun of it that ND and the federal government would agree to "treat" the water coming through the Tolna Coulee to satisfy the environmentalists and foreign interests (yes, Minnetucky is included in that for me). One would need to treat roughly 2,000 cfs (I vaguely remember that was the number tossed around as an input to DL).

2,000 cfs coming out of there would have to be RO'd for chemistry reasons, but you'd also have to install a water treatment plant similar to what is going in for NAWS to remove biota. Hey, I don't make the rules here, but that's what the courts and those who sued over the Red RIver Valley Water Supply and NAWS projects have sought and largely won through the courts and concessions made by ND and our federal government.

Anyway, 2,000 cfs equals 1,292,630,400 gallons of water per day. So, you would need a water treatment plant roughly 65 times the size of the Fargo one and it would also have to remove biota to the nine 9's according to Canada.

Oh yeah, and that doesn't deliver a single drop of drinking water. That's just what would be expected to happen if water were to come out of the east end of DL.

Before one gets all high and mighty and says the hell with Canada, the above is based on treaties with Canada and we need to remember that ratified treaties are considered the law of the land.

One should also remember that the whole idea behind this thread was one of not allowing your drain to affect your neighbor. Dumping fresh water onto someone else is one thing, dumping undrinkable and environment altering saline water is a whole 'nother thing.

I wasnt talking about filtering ALL the water, only that used for human consumption...

 

[db-2]

Camper next to Stemp Lake.
There are things growing in that lake that are not natural. db

 

[Allen]

I wasnt talking about filtering ALL the water, only that used for human consumption...

It doesn't work that way when you start transferring water in today's age from one watershed to another. Americans generally view DL as a non-contributing area of the Sheyenne River basin. The Canadians and MN basically think of it as a separate watershed that should remain as isolated from the Sheyenne, Red, and Hudson Bay drainage as much as possible.

In particular, this foreign position is at least partially due to the striped bass experiment. Yes, I know one hasn't been caught in 20-some years, but to the Canadians that part is irrelevant.

 

[tikkalover]

Ha ha, the Canadians and their clean water demand. The NAWS project started 21 years ago and there still hasn't been a drop of water put in the pipeline. But yet in the 2011 Souris/Mouse river flood I watched a shitload of debris and cow shit float down river to Lake Winnipeg.

 

[Slappy]

Unfortunately the devils lake basin project was literally a pipe dream where they put the cart in front of the horses, had the garrison diversion linked up with the basin in its initial proposal we would not have seen, I presume this to be the case since the basin would have a natural outlet via the tolna Coulee. Like I said the army Corp and the state of North Dakota put the cart in front of the horses and we now have a situation that I feel will have more problems in the future when the Cycle of drought returns to the basin like it did in the 80s.

While it seems convenient at first glance, connecting watersheds across continental divides is problematic for numerous reasons as Allen noted.

 

[lunkerslayer]

Yes that's obviously the main reason that the water outlet that is being built from south of Washburn through the mcclusky canal then piped across to the eastern part of North Dakota will have water that will be treated. Which I always chuckle at knowing how many tons with a big T of fertilizer/pesticides are part of the spring runoff every spring end up in Canada.

 

[db-2]

treaties are the law of the land as a native would say. db