If Turkmenistan Can Do It, Why Can’t We?

A few times, in this column, and certainly a few more, answering others in many places, I have said that much of what we need today is a goal,; something to strive for. If that goal brings us closer to Utopia, so much the better.

An article today, on the BBC website, shows that when ideas are put into action, great things can happen.

Turkmenistan to create desert sea

Turkmenistan has launched the latest stage of a plan to channel water across thousands of kilometres of desert to create a vast inland sea.

The lake will be filled with drainage water from the country’s cotton fields.

President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said the “Golden Age Lake” plan showed his country was preserving nature and improving the environment.

But critics say the water will be full of fertiliser and insecticides, and will evaporate quickly.

The project is one of the biggest and most ambitious in the world, and could cost up to $20bn (£12bn).

President Berdymukhamedov, wielding a spade, opened up the first tributary to bring water to a natural depression in the Karakum Desert. The desert covers more than 80% of Turkmenistan.

He told the crowd that the lake would make the desert bloom.
The president has approved other huge construction projects in Ashkhabad

“Our initiatives to provide water and environmental security… demonstrate that Turkmenistan is making huge efforts to contribute to common work on preserving the nature and improving the environment,” he said.

The water from the canals, he said, would attract wildlife and open up new land for agriculture.

Village elders in traditional clothing helped the water flow into the new channel.

Here in California, we are in the middle of a big problem. Not the one involving the Governator and his financial strategies,. No, I refer to the drought that, when speaking to the various water districts in Southern California, we are told has been upon us for more than a few years.

I worked on reverse osmosis units like this in the early ’80s; they are capable of producing clean, drinkable water from the most brackish imaginable.

We are on water rationing, and are in danger of being cited if we water our yards during the middle of the day, or more than twice a week. (The state, at this point, relies upon all the nosy neighbors, statewide, to enforce this.) We have to ask for a glass of water at a restaurant, or we won’t get one on the table, and we are encouraged to keep our cars dirty, for at least 3 weeks.

Death Valley, an area where anything would be an improvement!Imagine changing from this, to an oasis in the desert where people want to visit, year round, to enjoy water sports, sun, and everything else that California offers.

What if the state decided to bring water from the Pacific Ocean (right next to the state, to the left on most maps!) into the arid areas, such as the Death Valley, or re-supply the water to the Salton Sea, which has been dwindling in volume my entire life. In either case, the water could be converted from saline to fresh, through the use of reverse osmosis units. We have plenty of these things, as a couple of suppliers to the world for reverse osmosis membranes, have their manufacturing facilities in this state.

This is known as terraforming, and my mind reels when i think of all the jobs that would be brought here, in industry, able to be situated nearby, in tourism, because surely desert spas would spring from these man made oases, and for the transportation industry , when all the people come to visit the remade desert areas.

Now some would speak about the need for power, to run the pumps, the reverse osmosis units, the industry, the hotels, and anything else.  What is it that deserts have, in abundance, other than sand? Yes, sunlight. Sunlight that can make oodles of electrical power. It has been estimated that if only 20% of Death Valley was covered by silicon cells, enough energy to power the nation could be produced.

If we started into a period where huge projects were undertaken, similar to when the national highway system, and Hoover Dam, were built, no one would be worried about the economy, as it would improve stride by stride, in short order.

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