The reason the West is so dry, was the intentional wipeout of native animals.
The buffalo were wiped out first to remove the natives food source. Then beavers to hurt (mostly French) trappers.
Without them, the plants failed.
To fix it, honestly isnt hard:
First stack rocks in dry creek beds, the flatter the ground the longer you can go between them. Water still flows thru the rocks, but it does it slower sinking into the ground where it gets retained.
Doesn’t take long for grasses and plants to start establishing on those banks. Then small herbivores eat them and poop it out, fertilizing the area around the creek, and dispersing seeds from elsewhere.
The plants develop roots and suck water away from the creek bed, which now it can absorb more water.
Before long that creek that’s dry all but two weeks a year is now a permanent water, and where there’s running water beavers show up. They instinctively add to the initial rocks, turning them into full fledged dams and creating rivers and wetlands.
Add buffalo back on top of that once there’s enough greenery, and they’ll shit everywhere.
Freshwater constantly falls from the sky, the main problem is we fucked up the environment so most of it ends up going straight out to sea and becoming saltwater again. To refill aquifiers we just need to slow that flow down.
LA having “rivers” made of concrete is the dumbest shit ever
I was agreeing until the part where the water goes out to the sea. Less than 1% of the Colorado River reaches the sea. More than half is used for irrigating fields of live stock feed. So reducing beef consumption/cattle raising would have an outsized impact on water issues out west. As you mention, bison naturally work better with the environment of the western plains than European cattle.
There’s less water, and more than half of that lesser amount of water goes to cows thru their feed. If the environment recovered, they could just fucking graze. Even filling the nice of the buffalo
If we had more water retention, that would be a smaller percentage, and water would be flowing till the end. Increasing the less than 1%.
Like…
I’m talking about increasing flow by gallons, you’re talking percents…
Do I need to explain why that is always bad or has it clicked yet?
Quick edit:
And as always, if you think someone didn’t think of an obvious thing, it’s worth asking questions instead of just assuming anything that’s not mentioned wasn’t accounted for.
I didn’t say the earth orbits the sun, but it’s true.
I mean, it’s not…
The reason the West is so dry, was the intentional wipeout of native animals.
The buffalo were wiped out first to remove the natives food source. Then beavers to hurt (mostly French) trappers.
Without them, the plants failed.
To fix it, honestly isnt hard:
First stack rocks in dry creek beds, the flatter the ground the longer you can go between them. Water still flows thru the rocks, but it does it slower sinking into the ground where it gets retained.
Doesn’t take long for grasses and plants to start establishing on those banks. Then small herbivores eat them and poop it out, fertilizing the area around the creek, and dispersing seeds from elsewhere.
The plants develop roots and suck water away from the creek bed, which now it can absorb more water.
Before long that creek that’s dry all but two weeks a year is now a permanent water, and where there’s running water beavers show up. They instinctively add to the initial rocks, turning them into full fledged dams and creating rivers and wetlands.
Add buffalo back on top of that once there’s enough greenery, and they’ll shit everywhere.
Freshwater constantly falls from the sky, the main problem is we fucked up the environment so most of it ends up going straight out to sea and becoming saltwater again. To refill aquifiers we just need to slow that flow down.
LA having “rivers” made of concrete is the dumbest shit ever
I was agreeing until the part where the water goes out to the sea. Less than 1% of the Colorado River reaches the sea. More than half is used for irrigating fields of live stock feed. So reducing beef consumption/cattle raising would have an outsized impact on water issues out west. As you mention, bison naturally work better with the environment of the western plains than European cattle.
There’s less water, and more than half of that lesser amount of water goes to cows thru their feed. If the environment recovered, they could just fucking graze. Even filling the nice of the buffalo
If we had more water retention, that would be a smaller percentage, and water would be flowing till the end. Increasing the less than 1%.
Like…
I’m talking about increasing flow by gallons, you’re talking percents…
Do I need to explain why that is always bad or has it clicked yet?
Quick edit:
And as always, if you think someone didn’t think of an obvious thing, it’s worth asking questions instead of just assuming anything that’s not mentioned wasn’t accounted for.
I didn’t say the earth orbits the sun, but it’s true.
It’s unfortunate that all I see growing in my imagination is a wasteland of invasive tumbleweeds, but I hope you’re right and I’m wrong.