Yes. It’s called the Great Lakes Water Pact https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/WaterUse/compact.html
There was quite the controversy around southeast Wisconsin when Foxconn wanted permission to divert 7 million gallons per day for their corporate use. Of course, as usual, dollars overrule decency, and the plan was approved.
https://www.wpr.org/approval-foxconn-great-lakes-water-diversion-upheld
When you actually read the story and look at the facts, it’s an incredible stretch to say Foxconn asks for ‘7 million gallons per day’ for ‘their corporate use’. Language like that implies they want it immediately for some sort of industrial purpose, which indeed would be a concern under the Great Lakes Water Pact – but it seems more as if this is mostly for “insurance” in providing domestic water for the anticipated development that will take place ‘around’ Foxconn, in housing or office space, over the next couple of decades. It’s hard to say whether Racine Water and Wastewater Utilities will actually need most of that 7 million gallons at any time soon, as the story makes Haas sound as if he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time about whether or not the loss of all those industrial customers left his company with ‘surplus capacity’. I also see no breakdown for how much of the anticipated use is estimated to be for space-conditioning purposes, which (if the development is built to modern, say LEED, standards) would likely involve much less water-to-the-drain than older chilled-water systems might ‘consume’. Certainly the coming ‘slump’ that so many pundits have been predicting for the economy would greatly retard the anticipated buildout of the water-consuming new development…
In the absence of hard data on where Racine Water and Wastewater Utilities actually plans on releasing the treated recovered portion of this water – most of which, presumptively, will wind up in sewers rather than transpired, running off to bodies of water, or incorporated into products or technical waste. If there is an
I am unable to read the original article without subscribing.
Does the article identify where the water would specifically go besides saying “southwestern states”?
I think you would likely be surprised with how many of those geese never set a feather in Canada.
The largest of the Canada Geese, the Branta Canadensis Maxima, the ones most likely to be fouling (fowling?) golfcourses and public parks likely all descended from a recovery project conducted in Rochester Mn a few decades ago where the once thought extinct species was discovered holding out, and bred in captivity for re-introduction. This is a nature recovery success story we should be proud of.
A lot of things in this world bother me, but Canada geese are not one of them.
Here is a little clip that I shot in my back yard a couple years ago:
Water policy in the west, particularly in California, is crazy. I lived for a number of years in the East bay area of San Francisco. Due to the wonderous efforts of Mr Mulholland in making sure that water was available for Los Angeles, several water sources in the central and northern parts of the state were tapped by his civil engineering marvels. Which led to water rationing in the northern part of the state…restrictions on what days of the week you were allowed to water your lawn, or wash your car…stuff like that.
Then, I moved to Los Angeles only to see things such as shopkeepers cleaning off the sidewalks in front of their stores with garden hoses, every morning. No public mindset geared to water conservation whatsoever.
Reading the actual story is not very suggestive (they were proposing 3000gpm pumping, which is where the aggregate numbers came from). What is far more interesting is to follow the paper trail back to “Water Train” in Oregon:
I did not think you could do better than the Interstate Traveler Company, but (after a couple of glasses of port to be sure) I think they may actually have done it. Unit trains of streamlined collapsible bladders running autonomously on maglev ROW, transporting no more than 1/200 of the mighty Mississippi’s flow – a mere pittance, surely! – to the benighted West.
Evidently they are hedging some of their technical bets by starting small, with more conventional equipment, and it would appear that some of the strategy involves ‘distributed sourcing’ using a relatively wide range of origin sources … or at least gaming the permitting ‘in parallel’ to see who will and who won’t allow pumping or water diversion. It does have to be said that their assessment of ‘alternative’ (meaning pipeline) costs appears reasonable; they are well aware that desalinization (as I learned the term in my youth) is the practical alternative in places like California.
We could, and perhaps we will, discuss the economics and practical considerations until we have equine aspic to pipe into tank cars. I do give the guys in Minnesota points for setting up their game early, and for giving us a heads-up on where to go for the ‘opportunity’ while it’s still, relatively at least, on the ground floor for potential investment.
“Water flows uphill towards money.” ( https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/814198-cadillac-desert-the-american-west-and-its-disappearing-water )
“Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.” - Mark Twain
From the linked article: "The application indicates that two wells would be drilled to pump up to 500 million gallons of water a year, or about 3,000 gallons per minute . . . ". Doing the math, I get 500 MGY to be 950 GPM, not the stated 3,000 GPM. But even at the 3,000 GPM rate it would take ~8.33 mins. to fill a 25,000 gal tank car, which would be about 7.2 cars per hour, or only 173 cars in 24 hours. That seems marginal to me, for the all investment required. By the way, 500MGY is only about 1.37 MGD, which is about 5,480 houses (at 250 GPD, typical water use planning figure), which definitely isn’t very many. No idea of western rates, but at $100/ month = $1,200 per year (high even here on the East Coast - about 1.33 cents per gallon) that would be retail revenue of only $6.576 million a year - nowhere near enough. Whoever said it should be near the price of gasoline might be closer to the mark.
Not enough money here to make that water flow out west!
Also from the linked article: "Fischer said the DNR has confirmed that the venture woul
ALL:
As a retired Class 1 and a resident of Minnesota, I am glad the the MNDNR is stepping up to halt this proposal. As BALT said, the tank cars would need to be throughly cleaned to load non-potable in said cars. Also, would the back and forth movement of water in the cars be a problem for train handling. An ATSF historian can provide information on their transport of water to divisions in “bad” water districts for the steam engines. If my memory serves me correctly, didn’t the ATSF dieselize those districts first (both switches and road units)?
Basically a repetitive shuttle train between the same points - seems tailor-made for PSR operations as the Class 1’s seem to want it, if the rate can be high enough/ incremental OR low enough to continue that drive.
Whether the users/ consumers would want to pay that much is another question, as you note. If I had more time I’d pencil out what 2 cents per ton-mile would work out to from MN to Phoenix by some rail route - maybe someone else could do that?
Edit: The $100/ month ~$3.33 per day ($1,200 per year) example rate I posted above is more or less afforable for a middle-class household in the Northeastern US. But I don’t think a household in Arizona is going to want to pay 10 times (or a similarly-high multiple) of that . . .
2nd Edit: A quick Google Maps route from Randolph, MN to Phoenix shows several routes in the range of 1,623 to 1,654 miles. But none of them look to parallel either BNSF or UP all the way, so I would figure about 1,800+ actual miles. And 1 of them looks like it could work on BNSF and join the Southwest Chief on the route including La Junta, Colorado through Trinidad, Raton, Las Vegas NM, Albuquerque, etc. to the Southern TransCon. Wouldn’t that be an irony?!?
Their true name should be called North American Goose as they populate quite a few areas throughout the year…
Ahh yes! What part of the state do you reside at?
I’ve often wondered if “cañada geese” might be more appropriate.
That looks like a good beginning for a horror movie- the ordinary, quiet day and then…The Birds II- this time, they’re Canadian! [~]
Livonia. I live in a new sub and a flock of Canada geese from nearby Hines Park decided they were going to take over the retention pond. That was, they did until the grouchy old (60) man in the neighborhood kept chasing them away until they took flight.
It was a horror movie for this guy:
As to the question of trains hauling water long distances, (and that’s assuming the supply & legal issues are resolved), wouldn’t it make more sense or be cheaper for a pipeline to be used than railcars?
Math enthusiasts, start your engines!
Ultimately, yes, but…
Building the pipe line would probably bring all sort of foes out of the woodwork.
And you have the problem of possibly not needing it once the water shortage is over - possibly because it rained enouigh to make importing water unnecessary.
It’s not only the over population that has me concerned it is instead of honking like regular geese the Canadian geese make this strange sound…“eh?, eh?, eh?, eh?, eh?”. Then they hiss and flap their wings at you if your just minding your business walking by. Almost as bad as riding a train in Quebec during a Mary Kay convention.[:D]
Sully is not a fan of Canadian geese over New York!
Four years ago, some background on the potential methods, costs, and participation (or not) of BNSF and UP was covered here:
https://www.railwayage.com/freight/class-i/drought-relief-by-rail/