New Orleans shows the danger of waiting to prepare for global warming.
Olivia Henry, 6, uses bottled water to refill their cat’s water machine at their home in Buras, La., on Oct. 4. , “you will stop drinking the water because it doesn’t taste well well before it becomes a danger to your health.”, despite pleas to stay calm. For frustrated local officials, here’s a radical idea: Stop waiting for climate disasters to strike before acting. Instead, assess potential threats and adapt now.the days to when its freshwater might become undrinkable.
State and local officials have scrambled to prevent the worst-case scenario. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built up a sill of sediment on the bottom of the river to hinder the gulf’s advance. Because saltwater is heavier than freshwater, it flows beneath the river and must overcome obstacles on its floor to move forward. But this can only slow down the so-called saltwater “wedge.”
Saltwater can be made drinkable by reverse-osmosis filtration systems, but such technology could not meet the demands of a metropolitan area as large as New Orleans, which is home to more than 1 million people. Nor it is likely that officials can barge in enough water from elsewhere.that will pump water from upstream to dilute the salt contamination. The project will cost as much as $250 million, covered mostly by federal emergency funds.
It would be unfair to criticize local officials too harshly for not anticipating this disaster. Though there have been plenty of years of low flow, the region last saw such a dire threat of saltwater intrusion Still, it’s clear that what used to be “extreme” weather events are no longer all that rare. The last time the Mississippi faced dangerously low flow was, well, last year. In fact, this is the first time the river has seen such low flow in two back-to-back years. In 2022, thousands of bargesCommunities along the river must do a better job preparing. This could mean building more sills, osmosis units and permanent pipelines, or investing in desalination plants.
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