Pretty much irrelevant actually

[John P]

The only connection here is that I have skinny-dipped in this body of water. I assume the people who swam to the rescue yesterday were overdressed.

http://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2016/10/14/woman-rescued-after-driving-her-car-into-arlington-pond

Spy Pond is also the place where in 1959, a man fishing from the shore pulled up what he thought was a waterlogged tree branch, but which turned out to be a mastodon tusk. It's now in the town museum.

[eyesup]

I always find it curious how different regions have different definitions for things. That did not look like a pond to me. It has every indicator of a classic definition of a lake. Where I come from you could wade across a pond not completely submerge a car in it.

Maybe in it's original incarnation, it was smaller and has grown.

In your skinny dip, was the water warm, cold and was it night?

Duane

[Peter S]

Here in the UK we have a tendency to call a "river" something that may be little more than a wide ditch, certainly not worthy of the name alongside European and US waterways.

[John P]

There's not much rhyme or reason to what gets called a "pond" around here. Spy Pond, which the woman drove her car into, used to have an alternative name, Menotomy Lake. As the area became suburban, did it seem so familiar that it was reduced to pond status?

I'd only swim there when it was summer and the water was comfortable. I remember relaxing after signing the papers to buy my first house by taking a dip there: September 9, 1979, as I recall. Now I live a few miles away and other places are more convenient., and easier to get away with nudity too.

[eyesup]

In Texas a watering hole, pond, or other small body of water used for livestock and/or irrigation is sometimes referred to as a "tank". It's water in the ground, not in a manmade vessel.

Out here where water is scarce and rare what is named a river would be a creek or a bayou in East Texas.

It's one of the joys of maintaining regional dialects and legends. Something that is disappearing in the homogenization of society via social media.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Some of these western rivers are pretty skimpy. The amount of water in them diminutive, but the ditch has had a history of much more water. The Rio Grande for example is nothing comparatively, but the valley is immense. Then there is the Rillito River and the Santa Cruz, here in Tucson. They used to have a flow, but ground water pumping has dried them up completely. When they do flow, during heavy rains, they are raging rivers. So, my theory is that these bodies of water are defined by their potential, or previous volumes.

Again, regionally, a little spec of water looks pretty big, if you haven't seen big water in a long while.

In Michigan, we had ponds (about the size of a hockey rink) in the neighborhood that were called lakes to make them seem more impressive. The homes were built next to a "lake" not a "pond."
Jbee

[Peter S]

I was told a few years back that because of upriver extraction the Colorado no longer reaches the sea, at least not in any appreciable quantities. Anyone know if that was/still is the case?

[eyesup]

. . a little spec of water looks pretty big, if you haven't seen big water in a long while. . . . we had ponds . . that were called lakes to make them seem more impressive. The homes were built next to a "lake" not a "pond."

Ahh, marketing! P.T. Barnum would be proud!

Pjcomp, that can be true in some years. There is a movement to get the 7 states and Mexico to adjust their allotments to allow the river delta to recover. We'll see how that works out.

Colorado River flows vary with seasonal precipitation in the west. Snow and rain in states from Colorado to the west coast contribute to the river. The river basin is so allocated and regulated that little of the water, if any, makes it to the sea. There are about 10-12 agreements between those states and Mexico. It can get highly political and aggressive among the members. There are seven major tributaries that flow into the Colorado and all fall under the jurisdiction of the river compact.

If you are in need of some late night reading Google "Colorado River Compact" to get to sleep.

The 70's movie "Chinatown" touches on some of the skullduggery, albeit colored by Hollywood theatrics, in California at the time. Water is life in a desert! Literally!

Many people out here are having difficulty coming to grips with the fact of a lack of water for future growth opportunities. There is little to no regulation of development or growth. It gets me annoyed at times.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

If you go to google map and then the satellite image starting around Yuma, Arizona, you will see how the Colorado falls short of the sea.

We have the Central Arizona project taking more water from that river, which is essential. Some towns here have run out of water and can't grow anymore by law. There have also been those lean snow years in the Colorado Mountains that have diminished Lake Powell considerably (it has more coastline than California to give you perspective).

Water is life, but water is growth, the most major money maker industry in the west, the sunbelt. The adjacent states are fighting tooth and nail for the water, so Mexico will probably be screwed as it has been since those dams were built. Water wars get particularly nasty. Water rights wars have been happening since "civilization" and "progress" began here. 150 plus years ago? 94% of Arizona's riparian areas, free flowing water, are gone, as I've mentioned before, somewhere here. Consider this and then look at that dirt desert south of the border.

There is potential for a canuding, kayak trip in that area. There are the marshes and a long strip that isn't populated. The challenge would be the drop off and p/u. It is a very hot area, too.
Jbee

[John P]

I went on a commercial raft trip through the Grand Canyon last September, and part of the entertainment they provided was a lecture on "Water Law and Lore" by one of the leaders whose full-time job is as a lawyer working with environmental groups in Arizona. She explained that by contract, unless there's an exceptional snowfall year, which hasn't happened for a fair while, the government is required to give away more water from the Colorado than actually flows in it. The result is the steadily dropping level of Lake Powell, and also Lake Mead. The treaty with Mexico does provide them an allowance, but they get it via pipeline and not in the river itself, because what's left when it reaches the border is pretty much toxic. We were told that before the dams were built, "The Colorado delta had mangrove swamps with jaguars roaming through them". Sounds like fun. And they also said that if Lake Mead gets much lower, the intake pipe that sends water to Las Vegas will be left dry.

At one time there was a proposal to build a dam high up in the Grand Canyon, at a spot called Marble Canyon, and the purpose would have been to provide power to pump water uphill from Lake Havasu to Phoenix and Tucson. Some tunnels were dug to see if the rock was suitable, and problems were found, which combined with concerns about the impact on the Grand Canyon, led to the project's abandonment. They built a coal-burning power plant on the Navajo reservation instead. One tunnel in the side of the canyon is accessible, and our guides led us down it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_Canyon_Dam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_Generating_Station

A lot of these environmental problems occur because, uh, people insist on living in deserts. Ahem.

Maybe I should add (a slight effort at relevance) that this wasn't a naturist trip, though there are naturist trips through the Grand Canyon and some of my friends have been on them. I managed to get a few skinny-dips in, even when people could see, but generally it wasn't a very welcoming group for nudity. I sensed that the guides were a little disappointed, but it seemed as if they think it's better to stay out of conflicts between customers.

[jbeegoode]

"A lot of these environmental problems occur because, uh, people insist on living in deserts. Ahem."

We in Tucson have heard that a lot as Phoenicians laugh, "Why do you live down there (in Tucson)? You should live where the water is."

Phoenix is filled with water features and green lawns, golf courses, etc. attempting to make it NOT a desert, squandering the water. Las Vegas does the same thing. In Tucson we collect rain water, limit the green lawns, landscape is more native plants and desert like, xeroscaping. There are many programs to discourage water squandering. We live in a desert. Of course there is a push from exploiters. Phoenix is a polluted urban sprawl shit hole, with more job opportunities. One must go much further for real nature and naturism. They can have it. Four feet outside my door, I have pure nature and it is wonderful without being watered.
Jbee

[nudewalker]

There is a bit of me that feels little empathy for those who complain when they live in an area where there is an effort to change the landscape. Much like trying to turn the desert into a greenspace, living next to waterways in the valleys in the mountains here or on a barrier island prone to hurricane damage. You would think that over centuries we would have learned to live within the confines of the nature we are in instead of trying to change it. Like the old commercial used to say "It's not nice to fool mother nature!".

[jbeegoode]

Over the centuries, most of us have learned to adapt and integrate instead of conquer in ignorance. Many perished like inadequate freaks in a functioning ecosystem. In many ways we are still just lucking out, about to be tossed out of the world, but not before making a mark. We had much less impact, but in limited regions, until the last couple of hundred years.

I have sat here, naked, for years, observing my surroundings and marveling at nature and changes. I placed my home among the pristine, took only what I needed, impacting to a minimum, and observed. Experimented in my natural state as best that I could, learning to interact. I'm still just a visitor. I'm artificial in my existence and thereby less than that which surrounds me. The species that live here come in waves, dependent on conditions. Things get trimmed back in drought, and temperature extremes. Thing flourish. From year to year, season to season, there will be a different more prolific species of plant, sometimes an invasive one. Even the killer bees have changed, but left their impact in the transition.

I use a fraction of the water that most others do. It is precious. I harvest some rain, but I have noticed the impact on the natural around here and so I'm very careful not to disturb. There were people living here a few hundred years ago, which had to leave as the climate changed.

My nudity has given me a particular insight, to the nature. There is more interaction and I'm naked like the other inhabitants. There is more sense of kinship, the air flow, heat, cold, sun beating down, energies, and tactile being. Consciousness, awareness is so very different than in the man-made world.
Jbee

[nuduke]

I am led to deeper thought about how much I and my wife waste by Jbee's wise and pensive observation there.  Whilst we do our bit to recycle and save energy here and there, I am somewhat humbled by Jbee's long term approach to minimising his earth impact.  Thinking strategically about one's personal use of resources is not something that we have thought about much over time other than when prompted and indeed ecologically sound practices adopted for a few months or years at one time, evolve into new but similarly temporary ones as fashions change.  For instance just a few years ago, switching tungsten lights off and leaving fluorescent ones on was the vogue* but this has given way to the use of low wattage lighting devices and lamps and therefore, by me at least, a less ascetic attitude to how long they are on.  A 100W lamp vs a 5W LED means that a Kilowatt Hour is consumed in 200 rather than 10 hours.  No wonder therefore that one has become less obsessive about turning the light out every time on leaving the room.

I also learn to my delight from JBee that the residents of Phoenix are called Phoenicians!  ...Bring on the general knowledge quiz, I am armed and dangerous!

I am also moved to remark, further to my assertions in "Where is Everybody" that this thread is a great example of our wonderful ability to digress...just contrast the start of the conversation - an amusing article about a car accident - to it's more recent morphing into the classification of bodies of water and thence to the geopolitical implications of water extraction and now to personal environmental impact.  Absolutely great!  Hope the diffident lurkers get the same level of interest and enjoyment as we do!!

John

[eyesup]

A lot of these environmental problems occur because, uh, people insist on living in deserts. Ahem.

Oddly enough, those pesky humans also insist on living in artic tundra, coastal marshes, barrier islands, dense forests and other habitats that are not natural (sic) for modern humans to exist, which requires modifying the ecosystem. Ahem.

Just ask the original inhabitants of Lake Erie, the Ohio and Hudson rivers and scattered areas suffering from subsidence. It's more than people insisting on living in a desert. As Jbee points out, many move here and try to make their new home like their old home instead of adapting to the desert.

The future water availabliity here is so bad the water authority is trying to claim underground water in central Nevada and western Utah for future use. They are on the path to recreating the Owens River debacle from the 1920's. Because it appears as a desert to outsiders, doesn't mean it's dead and disposable. I've been camping and traveling up there and would hate to have to camp in a newly created landscape of sand dunes.

We haven't learned a thing!

At one point I was guilty of this water ignorance, but have been trying to get rid of the things that don't fit in here. We are moving to desert landscape. I have built features in my back yard that so far have required the removal of more than half of the original grass and our entire front yard is next on the list. We are downsizing our water footprint.

The water agencies here offer rebates (read taxpayer dollars) to people that put in desert landscape. It an inducement intended to offset the cost of removal and replacement of their lawns per the imperial directives and rules of all the multitude of "neighborhood associations". We looked into it and decided to do it on our own without following someones else's philosophy and going into major debt.

The effects would be there no matter the habitat. The problems began here with overcrowding and when the people INSIST on PRETENDING that it's not a desert.

Duane