Bernard Shanks, an adviser to the Resource Renewal Institute, has studied the six main-stem Missouri River dams for more than four decades. He has worked for the U.S. Geological Survey and served as director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has written three books on public land policy and is completing a book on the hazards of the Missouri River dams. Why another flood disaster? Six dams from Fort Peck in Montana to Gavins Point in South Dakota, authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1944, are in the process of failing at flood control. With spring water levels low, they can hold back more than three years of average Missouri River flow — enough to stop the worst floods and protect 750 miles of the Missouri River valley and heartland cities. This year, that is not the case.
Note recent tremor in north central Montana and its relative proximity to the Fort Peck Dam. The USGS tells us:
The first significant 20th century Montana earthquake occurred on June 27, 1925, when a magnitude 6 3/4 shock caused violent shaking over a 1,600 square kilometer area in southwestern Montana. The earthquake was felt over a 803,000 square kilometer area extending from the North Dakota line to Washington and from the Canadian border to central Wyoming.Here is today's burn index. Via Wildfire Today this from Chip Ward reposted at CBSNews:
If you live in the West, you can’t help wonder what will burn next. Eastern Colorado, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas are, at present, deep in drought and likely candidates. Montana’s Lodgepole Pine forests are dying and ready to ignite. Colorado’s Grand Mesa is another drying forest area that could go up in flames anytime. Wally Covington estimates that a total of about half-a-million square miles of Western forests, an area three times the size of California, is now at risk of catastrophic fires. As ex-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger observed in 2008 when it was California’s turn to burn, the fire season is now 365 days long.More on the gaia-revenge theory; the irony of the ad to the story is mind-twisting.
Here is something ironic. When they built Oahe a selling point for it was that it would be built on the shale rock face.
ReplyDeleteThe Canyon Ferry Dam near Helena built near the intersection of faults freaks me out, too. It holds back a kinetic time bomb of its own.
ReplyDeleteBy "Gaia-revenge theory," do you mean what I think you mean?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if Gaia is interested in revenge against humanity for its environmental felonies, but I suspect She will defend herself against humankind in the same way as the human body tries to throw off an invading pathogen ...
... unless, of course, humanity can stop acting as a planetary pathogen.
The science of geo-immunology ... I wonder if any universities teach it yet?
I don't think that the human body itself experiences anger against an infection (though the mind often does), nor does it seek revenge. I do believe that the body strives to survive, and mounts its attack against the pathogen accordingly.
I cannot believe that Gaia would be negligent about her own health and survival.
I wonder if the flu or cold viruses experience fear when the body's warriors attack them?
All good questions, Stan; i'm just pimping Cory. There certainly have been times when the Black Hills seems (i believe the Hills is living rock) to have consciousness telling the fungi when to fruit, for example, since that is such mysterious process.
ReplyDeleteThis NPR story was revelatory to me.
Climate change story in the Billings Gazette affirming Huttner:
ReplyDelete"According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, climate change is contributing to heavy rain and flooding. Warmer temperatures associated with climate change evaporate more ocean water and soil moisture, so that when storms do occur, there's more moisture in the atmosphere to fall as rain. Not only has snowpack declined compared to past climate fluctuations, but there's also been a "decoupling" of precipitation in the Colorado River basin and that of the Northern Rockies."