The Race to Save New Orleans' Drinking Water!

I thought this was an interesting article and side effect of the drought.

Saltwater wedge reaches Chalmette; Plaquemines buys N.O. water

Saltwater creeping up the Mississippi River reached Chalmette Wednesday, forcing Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser to declare a state of emergency and sign a deal with New Orleans to send millions of gallons of drinking water to its downriver neighbor. Slowing currents amid one of the most widespread droughts in recent memory has allowed water from the Gulf of Mexico to breach Plaquemines' water plants and come within six river miles of New Orleans' own water supply points.


"It could take out the water supply for all of us if we're not careful," New Orleans Deputy Mayor Cedric Grant told the Sewerage & Water Board's other members Wednesday, moments before they approved the Plaquemines deal.

To combat the saltwater, a contractor with the Army Corps of Engineers will construct a $5.8 million underwater dam meant to block the denser Gulf water from moving farther upriver. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. of Oak Ridge, Ill. will build the 1,700-foot-long sediment pile, known as a sill, at Alliance in Plaquemines, where similar sills were built in 1988 and 1999.

On Monday, corps New Orleans District commander Col. Edward Fleming said the project will take about six weeks, but that the leading edge of the saltwater should retreat behind the sill within the next two weeks. Three miles of the Mississippi were closed Wednesday to allow Great Lakes to install a pipeline needed to build the sill.

Nungesser issued a drinking water advisory as saltwater contaminated water supplies at Dalcour, Belle Chasse, Pointe a la Hache and Port Sulphur. Plaquemines recorded sodium levels in some places as high as 200 milligrams per liter, or 10 times the recommended concentration for potable water.

More...

So many weather related disasters of late, we can't even cover them all.

Not a big deal so it's a little salty in more ways than one. the NO water is crap anyway so they will never know the difference. It's Obamas fault he needs to call for rain he is god like right??

reply to post by mikellmikell


No comment on Obama.

But I'll tell you this much, when drinking water suddenly becomes a scarcity anywhere, let alone a major city, you can bet things won't remain even keeled for very long.

One more straw on the camel's back....

How many more do you imagine we can take?

As per this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...

They have mentioned that the over saturation of the soil with salt minerals is threatening a stock pile of 1.5million barrels of butane.

The would be a unprecedented ecological disaster, with butane leeching into the soil and water table could potentially kill the whole area. Even worse still, as infered in the other thread, a devastating explosion may result.

Chalk it up to just another of a million examples of the Law of Intended Consequences. In the big picture nature always moves to natural balance and so long as we don't play God and screw up that balance too much we are fine. But, in America greed and unrestrained capitalism rule -- profit the only arbiter of what is good or successful.

So in Louisiana developers destroyed and drained nature's natural filters -- all those coastal swamps and bayous -- to develop the "unimproved" land, building homes with a view, shopping centers and super stores. (Yes, "unimproved" is an actual business term for land humans have not claimed and re-purposed for it own uses. How arrogant is that?) This is the result. We need to always do more than use shallow arguments in discussing development. That's why regulations around environmental assessment are so important (though they too can get out of hand). None would be needed if we could be trusted, if we changed our culture to raise our children to be stewards of the world around us rather than thinking God create Earth for his humans to exploit.

reply to post by pajoly


I was wondering if leviying (sp?) the Mississippi is part of this problem.

I saw this on the news this morning. people that have to watch their sodium intake may need to find another source of water.

reply to post by nixie_nox


I always found it interesting that the demand we place on the water tables in regions of dense urbanization that these issues dont come up more and more.

Humans attempts at modifying the landscape certainly have some drastic effects.

As a interesting story that i have related to this, in a small town near my place of residence, a new sub-division of about 100 homes was to be built. They began the excavation process to prep for the sewer/sewage systems, and abruptly 3 weeks later they stopped. It turns out the geological engineer miscalculated and interfered with the water table in the proposed location. Effectively halting construction.

This small town mostly operates on a Well water system, where one well will feed four homes. With the disruption of the water table, Whoops cant build homes anymore. However, a few months have past and construction has resumed, I figure they came up with some kind of solution…..

As the Mississippi River continues to go down this is going to become more of a problem, but this is only the tip of the ice berg as it where.

The Mississippi is the largest transportation network in the United States. Billions of tons move up and down the river every year. If the Mississippi become un-navigable how are we going to move all this freight?

A raft of 45 barges is the equivalent to 745 Train Cars or over 1600 Semi-Trailers. And that's just one raft of barges. You can see the serious problem we are potentially facing.

And its not just the Mississippi River that the problem, other rivers that connect to the Mississippi are in the same dire situation.

Even the Great Lakes (except for Lake Superior) are down several feet. The further they lake levels fall the the less cargo freighter can carry. At some point harbors will become too shallow for ships to safely navigate and we be force to dredge the harbors or close them. The Lower Great Lakes are dependent upon rain and snow fall both of which we have had little of this year. If this continues we could see the End of the Great Lake as we know them.

As for New Orleans, I though they should have abandoned the City after Katrina. Its kinda stupid to build a city in a soup bowl sounded by soup, Plus they didn't rebuild the levies to withstand a Cat 4 or 5 Storm, only a Cat 3. So sooner or later in will happen again. Sooner or later we will lose New Orleans, and when it does happen again lets just build a New "New Orleans" upon higher ground. And we can then clean up Old "New Orleans" and let it become part of Lake Pontchartrain.