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the watcher

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  24. The Environment Thread

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by the watcher

    So I have been worried about all the tile drainage that has been going on lately. For those who aren't familiar , a grid of perforated pipe is laid down 2.5 to 4 feet below the surface and all excess water is drained off.  I have one neighbor that is doing 8,000 acres this year. ( that would be a strip a mile wide and over 12 miles long ). There are 10s of thousands of acres being drained. There has always been  concerns about the quality of the water if it is just piped into ditches but my concern is our aquifers not being replenished. When I have brought it up with pro tiling guys I am always told that water from that level has no effect on aquifers.BUT that doesn't seem logical to me. So I finally quit being lazy and started to try and find info on it.So I found a White paper done in Minnesota. It involved a platoon of PhDs,  geologists,  Proffs, water resource people....... and here is an excerpt from that study :

    Knowledge gaps. 
    Several critical knowledge gaps are identified in this 
    paper, creating opportunities for further research 
    to improve our understanding for better managed 
    water resources:
    1. Extent of drainage is unknown. Direct 
    estimates of the extent of subsurface drainage do 
    not exist in Minnesota. However, several indirect 
    methods have been utilized to estimate subsur-
    face drainage, from the field-scale to county-
    level through the use of geographic information 
    system (GIS) analysis and aerial photography. 
    Based on a 2012 U.S. Geological Survey estimate 
    of subsurface drainage extent (Nakagaki and 
    Wieczorek, 2016), about 21% of the land area in 
    Minnesota has some density of subsurface drain-
    age.
    2. Effect of drainage on underlying aquifers is 
    unknown. A basic understanding of unconfined 
    and confined aquifers and their recharge is nec-
    essary to connect any hydrological effects from 
    agricultural drainage to groundwater. The basic 
    goal of subsurface drainage to efficiently drain 
    saturated soils clearly alters the water balance in 
    croplands. However, its overall effect on ground-
    water resources has been poorly characterized, 
    and is in large part determined by the geology 
    below drained areas and the arrangement of 
    underlying aquifers.
    3. Water balance shifts. An improved understand-
    ing of historical water balance shifts from pre- to 
    post-drainage periods is necessary to understand 
    long-term implications on net groundwater re-
    charge. Also, more direct field-scale studies and 
    indirect modeling studies are needed to charac-
    terize water budgets for fields with subsurface 
    drainage.

    So they conclude they don't know how much drainage there is. They don't know the effect on aquifers or the recharge of those aquifers. They don't know the long term effect of that drainage.

    Yet we continue full bore at it.  This is F ing nuts. And know one seems to notice. And most people have no clue it's happening. 

  25. Covid-19

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 2021-08-07 at 3:37 PM, SpeedFlex27 said:

    Buh bye.

    Agreed. I read a couple of stories on him. He had regretted he never got the vaccine, wished he had, told people they should get the shot, ..........But no where does it say he regreted or felt bad for being the cause of people getting Covid  and suffering or dieing. A self centered prick to the end. He was part of a group of people whose influence has caused the death of thousands. The world is a better place without him.

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