Cape Town Is 90 Days Away From Running Out of Water

[funksouljon]

Guy that was in the peace Corp in Africa told me his first night there they had like a meet and greet party with the locals.
Kid at the table asked him if it was really true that Americans had so much water that they shit in it.

Yeah, before we Americans cast stones on how others use water, we should really look at how we use / waste it. Water features in the middle of the desert. We crap into water that is more clean than most of the world's drinking water. Golf courses? Yet we import the worlds best water because it hasn't been touched by man.

We've been blessed with a number of natural resources that other simply don't have. Can't let chance and luck be confused with moral superiority.

 

[Dr. Nole]

 

[billanole]

Bill, I think you missed my point. If the population has increased, aren't they deserving of water as well? How are they getting more than their "fair share"? Who determines what's "fair"? Have you "made enough money" in your life? Do new residents to the ATL need to move to the Panhandle so things are "fair"?

And perhaps you missed my point as well. As the population increases and the resource does not, current usage patterns will not work. Without some give and take, as well as real changes in have many gallons per capita folks use, this is destined to be a very serious fight.
I am not savvy as to the historic allocations per state in this watershed, but Georgia withdraws much more than they once did. This is primarily the Atlanta region as well as a much larger agricultural pull from areas further south.
If you were supposed to get a third of the supply, but by virtue of geography the first guy in line begins to take more and more, what would you have to say about it?

 

[billanole]

Guy that was in the peace Corp in Africa told me his first night there they had like a meet and greet party with the locals.
Kid at the table asked him if it was really true that Americans had so much water that they shit in it.

It’s also true that many peoples around the globe use the local water source for multiple needs, including personal sewers.
I had a biology instructor whose close friend was involved in a project below the Grand Aswan dam in Egypt. Damming the Nile, and the subsequent slow moving water downstream resulted in a proliferation of intestinal parasites in local populations. The folks used the water for bathing, laundry, defacation, drinking water, waste dump, etc... Not gonna mention how the parasites entered the body. So, a series of compostable toilets were installed and locals were instructed in their use. Great, now there were less problems with water quality and with parasites.
The guy went back a year or two later and noticed that the old practices had resumed. He asked someone why and they took him to look inside one of the toilets. It was full to the brim with the smooth river rocks used for cleaning up after the deed.

 

[F4Gary]

Yep, I’m incredibly ticked at what happened to Appalachicola.
First of all, of all of the oysters I’ve tasted they are my personal favorite.

Second of all, Apalachicola was one of the few areas that didn’t need to resort to farming to meet demand. Or they DIDNT until the ahats in Atlanta killed most of the wild crops. It was one of the last areas that was sustainably managed and wholly wild, until now.

Fixed it for ya. Actually, for the rest of us.

 

[seminole97]

We've been blessed with a number of natural resources that other simply don't have. Can't let chance and luck be confused with moral superiority.

Venezuela is blessed with natural resources too, but an immoral system can moot that pretty quick.

 

[funksouljon]

Venezuela is blessed with natural resources too, but an immoral system can moot that pretty quick.

Um, okay, you got me. "We are not as bad as Venezuela." Any other high moral benchmarks you'd like to reference?

Fact is we are horribly wasteful and our excess consumption is only exceed by our luck of excessive resources.

 

[billanole]

Um, okay, you got me. "We are not as bad as Venezuela." Any other high moral benchmarks you'd like to reference?

Fact is we are horribly wasteful and our excess consumption is only exceed by our luck of excessive resources.

What is the old saying, “You don’t know what you got ‘till it’s gone.”

 

[seminole97]

Um, okay, you got me. "We are not as bad as Venezuela." Any other high moral benchmarks you'd like to reference?

There are plenty of ‘holes to pick from.
Venezuela is just a good and relevant example, and represents at this time an end of the spectrum.
A generation ago it wasn’t in this kind of shape.

Fact is we are horribly wasteful and our excess consumption is only exceed by our luck of excessive resources.

I don’t disagree about the wasteful consumption. But I don’t chalk the status up to luck. Not in the long run a generation represents.
I do think we have to figure out a better way to price these things. Pricing by diktat is the road to Venezuela.

 

[FreeFlyNole]

https://www.dcreport.org/2017/12/28/utah-water-wasters-want-to-siphon-more-of-the-colorado-river/

 

[NotGuiltyNole]

Free, I understand we are bashing the "Ahats" in Atlanta, but who exactly are those Ahats? Is it the people who moved here after a certain date? My dad got here in 67, is he allowed. What about my generation? Or is it my nephews who are the problem? Maybe it is the cities fault for attracting too many top employers and needing people to fill those jobs? Is is Sherman's fault for not killing every single ATL resident on his march through town?

I 100% agree with your feelings about Apalach Bay, but I think your placement of the blame on ATL is a little misguided. Factory farms dumping nitrogen in the gulf, rising ocean temps, general pollution, and the Hooch have a lot do to with the bay struggling. Let's talk about how in the 90's I could catch fish all day long in the surf on SGI, hell I could do it 5 years ago. Now, it is hard to catch anything in the surf. The fish are moving offshore.

 

[Oclawaha]

Plenty of catfish around
And still decent schools of whiting. Occasional red. It’s not North Jersey Shore dead yet thank God.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Free, I understand we are bashing the "Ahats" in Atlanta, but who exactly are those Ahats? Is it the people who moved here after a certain date? My dad got here in 67, is he allowed. What about my generation? Or is it my nephews who are the problem? Maybe it is the cities fault for attracting too many top employers and needing people to fill those jobs? Is is Sherman's fault for not killing every single ATL resident on his march through town?

I 100% agree with your feelings about Apalach Bay, but I think your placement of the blame on ATL is a little misguided. Factory farms dumping nitrogen in the gulf, rising ocean temps, general pollution, and the Hooch have a lot do to with the bay struggling. Let's talk about how in the 90's I could catch fish all day long in the surf on SGI, hell I could do it 5 years ago. Now, it is hard to catch anything in the surf. The fish are moving offshore.

Part of it is Americans spend so much water, pesticides and fertilizer to grow a crop (grass) that they then bag up and throw in the garbage or at BEST compost. I wish we’d spend a tiny portion of the research dollars we spend turning corn into everything under the sun and gave it to learning how to process grass into useful things like biofuel, plastics, paper etc... Then rather than have a ton of subcontractors who just dispose of the grass, turn it into a mandatory city/municipal utility like garbage and water where you pay a fee per square foot and the city hauls away the grass (they cut) to be processed into something useful. That way all of the water and chemicals wasted on grass actually went to something useful.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Plenty of catfish around
And still decent schools of whiting. Occasional red. It’s not North Jersey Shore dead yet thank God.

Yeah, it’s been about a year but last time I went fishing at St George my wife and I caught a veritable ton of reds, snotties, sailcats, croakers, bonnethead sharks, sharpnose sharks, sand trout, silver/white trout and larger pinfish/grunts just by walking to the grassbeds from shore. We didn’t catch any pompano or whiting as we weren’t in the sandier areas and we didn’t catch any spotted sea trout for some reason despite catching a ton of their smaller relatives and pretty large reds all day. So I didn’t notice SGI being any more or less fished out from what I remember, I easily caught 30-40 fish of various species myself just walking around in no more than hip deep water (I’m pretty shark averse as I was “bumped” by a large one as a kid) and using shrimp and squid tipped spinner baits at the end of a thunder rig. That setup seems to call in small sharks, cats, reds, Spanish, crevalle and trout like a dinner bell but I seldom catch flounder, mangrove/gray snapper, spades, sheepshead, whiting, kingfish, or some of the other common fish in the area with that setup.

 

[FSUTribe76]

Plenty of catfish around
And still decent schools of whiting. Occasional red. It’s not North Jersey Shore dead yet thank God.

Oh and I have eaten both snotties and sailcats out of curiousity even though few fishermen keep the gafftopsail catfish and almost no one keeps the hardheads and I have to say IF I was better at skinning them I would keep them all the time, at least the females. They are both very mild catfish with more of a “shrimpy” flavor than a “catty” or muddy flavor you get from wild caught freshwater cats. Catfish in general isn’t my all time favorite fish, but for a change I can really get into them (Catfish Charlie near Biloxi and the buffet at Boomtown Casino in Biloxi in particular). And they both have eggs that make really interesting caviar! The eggs have a great flavor but they’re huge, the size of a small marble and five maybe ten times the size of salmon, so when you brine them and then use them in dishes they REALLY pop, like a grape flavored with the sea. But I don’t usually keep the snotties even though they taste fine and have great caviar because they’re like a third head so once you skin them there’s very little meat left. And I SUCK at skinning catfish so it takes me forever for very little meat.

Now the sailcats...totally worth it. They usually have a couple pounds of meat on them and seem easier to skin than the little snotties.

 

[KitingHigh]

Oh and I have eaten both snotties and sailcats out of curiousity even though few fishermen keep the gafftopsail catfish and almost no one keeps the hardheads and I have to say IF I was better at skinning them I would keep them all the time, at least the females. They are both very mild catfish with more of a “shrimpy” flavor than a “catty” or muddy flavor you get from wild caught freshwater cats. Catfish in general isn’t my all time favorite fish, but for a change I can really get into them (Catfish Charlie near Biloxi and the buffet at Boomtown Casino in Biloxi in particular). And they both have eggs that make really interesting caviar! The eggs have a great flavor but they’re huge, the size of a small marble and five maybe ten times the size of salmon, so when you brine them and then use them in dishes they REALLY pop, like a grape flavored with the sea. But I don’t usually keep the snotties even though they taste fine and have great caviar because they’re like a third head so once you skin them there’s very little meat left. And I SUCK at skinning catfish so it takes me forever for very little meat.

Now the sailcats...totally worth it. They usually have a couple pounds of meat on them and seem easier to skin than the little snotties.

Ain't nothing wrong with a sailcat. They are pretty easy to skin and taste more or less like freshwater catfish. Most people refuse to eat any catfish, but they are missing out. You can have the hardheads though. Too mushy.

 

[Oclawaha]

Not sure which is more worthless. Hardhead or a jack crevalle. I guess God put them there for a reason. Maybe to randomly fin visiting yankee surfcasters.
Who knows.

 

[F4Gary]

Sail Cat
A cat that has been run over so many time, you can pick him up and sail him like a frizbee.
" Yesterday a highway pizza, today a sail cat."

 

[FSUTribe76]

Ain't nothing wrong with a sailcat. They are pretty easy to skin and taste more or less like freshwater catfish. Most people refuse to eat any catfish, but they are missing out. You can have the hardheads though. Too mushy.

I never noticed the snotties being mushy, they are pretty small filets so you have to be careful not to overcook them. Having said that...they’re not worth the effort unless you’re hard up because it takes me like 5-10 minutes to butcher them to get a tiny bit of meat. You’d need to eat about 5 per person to get full so that’s a LOT of work.

Now if I could skin them as quick as the guys on the how to videos where it takes like five seconds them maybe I’d do it regularly.

 

[billanole]

Free, I understand we are bashing the "Ahats" in Atlanta, but who exactly are those Ahats? Is it the people who moved here after a certain date? My dad got here in 67, is he allowed. What about my generation? Or is it my nephews who are the problem? Maybe it is the cities fault for attracting too many top employers and needing people to fill those jobs? Is is Sherman's fault for not killing every single ATL resident on his march through town?

I 100% agree with your feelings about Apalach Bay, but I think your placement of the blame on ATL is a little misguided. Factory farms dumping nitrogen in the gulf, rising ocean temps, general pollution, and the Hooch have a lot do to with the bay struggling. Let's talk about how in the 90's I could catch fish all day long in the surf on SGI, hell I could do it 5 years ago. Now, it is hard to catch anything in the surf. The fish are moving offshore.

Not bashing everybody, just noting that it is a finite resource. As more folks come to the table, there will be a lesser amount of resource available for each. It is not a tough concept.
If the first person in line takes more than their historical share, the rest of the crowd is gonna respond.

 

[billanole]

Free, I understand we are bashing the "Ahats" in Atlanta, but who exactly are those Ahats? Is it the people who moved here after a certain date? My dad got here in 67, is he allowed. What about my generation? Or is it my nephews who are the problem? Maybe it is the cities fault for attracting too many top employers and needing people to fill those jobs? Is is Sherman's fault for not killing every single ATL resident on his march through town?

I 100% agree with your feelings about Apalach Bay, but I think your placement of the blame on ATL is a little misguided. Factory farms dumping nitrogen in the gulf, rising ocean temps, general pollution, and the Hooch have a lot do to with the bay struggling. Let's talk about how in the 90's I could catch fish all day long in the surf on SGI, hell I could do it 5 years ago. Now, it is hard to catch anything in the surf. The fish are moving offshore.

Do you think that lower volume of clean fresh water hitting the estuaries might contribute to the lower catch? Connect the dots, my friend.

 

[seminole97]

http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2018/01/california_raw_water_fans_pay.html

When people in central Oregon's Madras, Culver and Metolius turn on their taps, untreated spring water flows forth. It costs them less than a penny per gallon.

A company in California buys that same water and sells it in big glass jugs for up to $8.60 a gallon around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The jugs are flying off the shelves.

"The water's been doing really well," said Edwin Diaz, manager of Erewhon Market in Calabasas, a small city northwest of Malibu. "It's kind of a specialty item."

Fans are quenching their thirst for "raw water" – water with no chemicals or other treatment that passes federal regulations because it's clean at the source.

"It's a no-brainer," said Lee Sayer, a musician in San Francisco and anti-fluoride activist who has been drinking raw water for months. "You have water that's processed through the earth through natural processes – it's cleaned. And being that water has memory, it has a memory of tumbling through the rocks. It has micronutrients and I believe it's alive."