Massive Underground Water Supply Found In Desert African Country (Supply could last 400 years)

Business Insider ^ | 07/21/2012 | Michael Kelley

[SeekAndFind]

A newly discovered water source could supply half of Africa's driest sub-Saharan country with 400 years of water, reports Matt McGrath of BBC.

The new aquifer – called Ohangwena II – flows under the border between Angola and Namibia, covering an area of about 43 miles by 25 miles on Namibia's side.

The water is up to 10,000 years old and cleaner to drink than many modern sources.

Project manager Martin Quinger told BBC that the stored water could last 400 years based on current rates of consumption.

Currently the 800,000 people living in the northern part of the country get their drinking water from a 40-year-old canal that brings the scarce resource from Angola.

Quinger added that Ohangwena II could change the nature of farming in the area, which has only been viable near two rivers in the region, and could act as a natural buffer for up to 15 years of drought.

Natural pressure will make the water easy and cheap to extract.

[Dosa26]

What’s the vegas over under on how long till they start pooping in it?

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks SeekAndFind. Evolution in Your Face by Patrick Huyghe Omni Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, is home to more than 300 species of cichlids. These fish, which are popular in aquariums, are deep-bodied and have one nostril, rather than the usual two, on each side of the head. Seismic profiles and cores of the lake taken by a team headed by Thomas C. Johnson of the University of Minnesota, reveal that the lake dried up completely about 12,400 years ago. This means that the rate of speciation of cichlid fishes has been extremely rapid: something on average of one new species every 40 years! The African Source Of The Amazon's Fertilizer Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[BwanaNdege]

“I’m sure they’ll still need thousands of young naive Americans to go over there to dig wells for them and teach them to farm and not poo into the wells.”

I’m one of your “young naive Americans” who went over there “to dig wells for them and teach them to farm and not poo into the wells” only I’m no longer young (64) and I TAUGHT them to dig wells. They already knew the part about not “pooing”. (To be truthful, I kinda failed the “naive” part; at the time, I was 32, married, a father of three and a USMC Vietnam vet.)

One of my most fond memories is about taking a group of my seminary students and other instructors to see the first well I had made, six years earlier. We walked by three mud & thatch huts on the way to this family well. At each hut, the lady of the house came out, saw us and proclaimed, “Oh! We praise God for this well!”

Life has great rewards for the “naive”.

[BwanaNdege]

“I’m sure they’ll still need thousands of young naive Americans to go over there to dig wells for them and teach them to farm and not poo into the wells.”

I’m one of your “young naive Americans” who went over there “to dig wells for them and teach them to farm and not poo into the wells” only I’m no longer young (64) and I TAUGHT them to dig wells. They already knew the part about not “pooing”. (To be truthful, I kinda failed the “naive” part; at the time, I was 32, married, a father of three and a USMC Vietnam vet.)

One of my most fond memories is about taking a group of my seminary students and other instructors to see the first well I had made, six years earlier. We walked by three mud & thatch huts on the way to this family well. At each hut, the lady of the house came out, saw us and proclaimed, “Oh! We praise God for this well!”

Life has great rewards for the “naive”.

[smaug6]

I design developments and utility systems for a living think I am dumb or incapable? I am a PE. Your point is what? Mine being the aquifer has been there for thousands of years and it is 2012 and they(Who did discover it bTW?) just now discovered it. If technology and political stability was a little more widely spread (I blame the lack of adoption of colonial systems by natives here) maybe this problem would have sorted itself out by now. You can’t make someone recognize a superior form of culture. Think for a second here. Anyway this aquifer lies below a salty one. I am assuming encased wells to the depth of the aquifer. Can your buddies do this with hand tools? No depth mentioned in the article.

[BfloGuy]

Today not many people in an arid environment waste water, their consumption rate is low. When it becomes plentiful all that will stop.

Very true and my first thought, too. Nonetheless, it could prove a blessing if only it's exploited wisely. Dim prospects for that, I suspect.

[BwanaNdege]

“Hmmmm... Remember the DDT ban, and the thousands (tens? hundreds of thousands?) of deaths from Malaria in sub-saharan Africa??”

http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsid.442/healthissue_detail.asp

“THE DDT BAN TURNS 30 — Millions Dead of Malaria Because of Ban, More Deaths Likely”

[BwanaNdege]

“I design developments and utility systems for a living think I am dumb or incapable? I am a PE. Your point is what? Mine being the aquifer has been there for thousands of years and it is 2012 and they(Who did discover it bTW?) just now discovered it.”

And I fly helicopters and wear a digital watch, but I could not keep myself alive for 6 weeks in their environment.

Folks in Africa are no more or less intelligent than you or I, they just have a different set of skills. We have been blessed with a stable government and culture and great access to information.

It hasn’t been that long since we were ignorant about resources under the ground.

“Yes, petrol (or gasoline as it is known in the US) was not only a waste product, it was an unprofitable nuisance.

During the mid to late 1800s industrializing countries (such as America) were throwing crude (raw unprocessed) oil into rivers.

In the 1850s, crude oil was tossed into the Kanawha River (West Virginia, USA). Then up until about 1880, petrol (its lighter by-product) was dumped into the Cuyahoga River (Ohio, US).”
http://www.wotwaste.com/waste-articles/industrial-waste/was-petrol-really-once-a-waste-product?print=1&tmpl=component

[danielmryan]

Hmmmm... Remember the DDT ban, and the thousands (tens? hundreds of thousands?) of deaths from Malaria in sub-saharan Africa??

To be honest, you had to remind me. Now that you mention it, I'm surprised that the African governments didn't defy the ban and try to make DDT in their parts. But, they didn't.

[smaug6]

‘Folks in Africa are no more or less intelligent than you or I, they just have a different set of skills. We have been blessed with a stable government and culture and great access to information.’

Every assumption in this sentence is factually in error.
http://www.iq-tests.eu/iq-test-IQ-correlations-700.html
We are not blessed you fool we make our world better. You just don’t get it. Goodbye.

[Renfield]

I'm sure, as we speak, a group of muzzies somewhere is brainstorming plans for ruining the drinkability of this water.

The greater likelihood is that a corporation will gain control of this aquifer and use it for some frivolous purpose like transporting coal slurry in the desert, to save a couple of bucks per ton over shipping it by truck or rail. A few years back, a coal company did this in Arizona, and depleted the aquifer that the Hopi had been relying upon for millenia for their water. Now their life is much more uncertain, but some coal barons have more money in their pockets.

[samtheman]

Coal barrons?

Yeah, that’s my biggest worry.