Late night musings.

[Marcus Allen]

As you all know, I have too many questions about my realty for my own good. And I am a bit of a night owl. Not a good combo. So, here I am again, seeking some sense in my sometimes confusing world.

1. There are several "retention ponds" around the HTown area. Is this for show, practical reasons (flooding, etc) or something else? And most contain a fountain of sorts (my new favorite is the EC Shell campus). Check it out if you havent already. Is the fountain placed so the water doesn't become stagnant or again, for aesthetic reasons?

2. The east seems to get so much water, why doesn't some engineering genius find a way to pipe it to places like CA, NV and AZ? Is it purely topography? Or is there something else behind it? I mean, hey, they have found a way to market sunshine and air ( tanning salons and oxygen bars) so why not water?

I just think some one could make billions from this endeavor.

One More

3. I wonder if HTown could capitalize on building movie studios around the city to showcase various parts of geography? Perhaps the Astrodome? But I think of the pine woods, the marshes, the prairie,the bayous which could be converted to resemble foreign canals and waterways, the urban areas, both gritty and utopian; the list goes on. We could charge so much less than bloated LA and NY for venues and still make money for the city.

What say you all?

[editor]

2. The east seems to get so much water, why doesn't some engineering genius find a way to pipe it to places like CA, NV and AZ? Is it purely topography? Or is there something else behind it? I mean, hey, they have found a way to market sunshine and air ( tanning salons and oxygen bars) so why not water?

I just think some one could make billions from this endeavor.

What say you all?

 

It's just too expensive.  You'd have to buy up massive amounts of land to do a project like that.  If you really wanted to ship water long distance to Arizona, then it would make more sense to get it from places like Oregon and Washington which are a couple of thousand miles closer, and have even more water than the East.

 

Again, though, you'd have to buy up huge amounts of land.  Plus the topography is terrible.  Assuming you'd go over the mountains, you'd have to build huge pumping stations to move vast amounts of water.   The good news is that by the time the water got to the top of the Sierras, it would have gravity on its side and the momentum could be pretty much free from there on down.  But by the time the water got to Arizona, it would still cost a couple of hundred dollars a gallon because of the land, infrastructure, electricity, and manpower required.  

 

There are a few companies in a position to do this cheaper, though -- the railroads.  They very jealously guard their rights-of-way.  Some have used their land for pipelines in the past.  If America ever gets into a real water predicament, I could see the railroads bunging water pipelines under or alongside their routes.  

 

It reminds me of an old Steven King story called "The Jaunt."  Somebody invents a teleporter, and instantly the oil companies become mostly irrelevant because people don't need cars and trucks anymore.  So Shell Oil became "Shell Oil and Water" because it already had the infrastructure in place.

[Marcus Allen]

That makes a lot of sense to me. Wait until the eleventh hour and then voila! A solution will " magically" appear, like hybrid US cars. LoL. I wonder which will be the first investment risk taken; serious water pipelines or desalination plants? Both seem incredibly expensive and almost unfeasible. By the way, kudos on the SK short story, "The Jaunt". Back in my teaching days ( I am in business now) I read it every Halloween to my AP Literature Honors Senior class. Classic SK. The last few lines still haunt me. But your point is well taken.

[IronTiger]

1. There are several "retention ponds" around the HTown area. Is this for show, practical reasons (flooding, etc) or something else? And most contain a fountain of sorts (my new favorite is the EC Shell campus). Check it out if you havent already. Is the fountain placed so the water doesn't become stagnant or again, for aesthetic reasons?

Mostly to prevent flooding and also allow some water to go back into natural waterways (eventually) with less pollution. I believe CoCS requires it on most developments.

[Marcus Allen]

Thanks Iron Tiger.