Phoenix Could Become Riverside Community

[GreenPartyVoter]

PHOENIX (AP) - The dust, rocky soil and inhospitable summers make it hard to imagine why anyone would have settled here before air conditioners and sprinkler systems. But a century ago, Phoenix was a riverside community, with sometimes flowing water and even an occasional flood. Eventually, dams turned the riverbed into a barren ribbon punctuated by gravel mines. Now government officials are working to bring the river back.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local governments are working to return trees and vegetation to the Salt River's banks. Sections in the metropolitan area, totaling some 40 miles, are in various stages of study or rehabilitation.

"Our goal isn't to establish it to presettlement conditions. It's never going to happen," said Kayla Eckert, study manager for the Army Corps of Engineers. "We're trying to create something that's sustainable."

That means the river would have seasonally flowing water and small pools, and would be flanked by native trees like willows, cottonwoods and mesquite.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040620/D83AVIH80.html

[dsewell]

1. And then we add wooly mammoths!

As geologist Paul Martin has halway seriously suggested, we could bring back the megafauna to the Southwest, reversing the late Pleistocene extinctions.

[Stephanie]

2. Why are you posting so many threads?

Just curious.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. Oh, I always toss in a bunch of news articles when I first come online.

Anything that looks like it will get an interesting conversation going. :)

[Stephanie]

4. Really?

And how do you keep track of them all?

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. The My Posts link on the top of my browser page

I just keep checking to see what's been updates. :)

[Stephanie]

8. I see

Perhaps we could ask the mods to create a new forum just for you, so you don't have to keep clicking that link all the time.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Nah, I'm fine.

Thanks for your concern.

[LTR]

5. Hmmm...this looks familiar

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1824658

[duhneece]

7. Interesting. In the West, our water is being bought by urban areas

and agricultural producers.
From Los Angeles to Alamogordo, New Mexico the cities are buying water from the rural areas causing our water tables to drop and our wells, forests & canyons to dry up. Those in the East probably can't understand how different the water laws are in the West.
National Forests, which belong to all of us, are being destroyed by the water rights being purchased.
There is an international movement to privatize all the water-guess only the wealthy elite can drink ...or bathe, or wash clothes, etc.
Sometime, somehow, someone needs to realize that much of the West is desert and increased population and increased farming are destroying much of the land in between the cities.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. I'm in the East and I admit

the western water situation is mind-boggling to me, as is the idea that water is something that can be privatized.

But I know that it is happening. Read about it in Palast's book. :(