Coast leaving scientists with a sinking feeling

Houston Chronicle ^ | June 5, 2005 | ERIC BERGER

[Condor51]

As soon as the NewYorkTimes picks this up tomorrow it'll look like this

Louisiana's Shores Plunging Fast
Women and minorities hit hardest - Bush mum to their plight!

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Then I will have that cheesecake.

[Dog Gone]

We have a meeting with the Commissioner of the General Land Office later this month in a hope of reaching a satisfactory settlement.

There's no dispute that much of the land is now underwater. There's also no doubt that sea levels have risen somewhat since the 1900. The issue is how much of the subsidence is due to rising sea levels and how much is due to water wells.

We believe it's about 97% due to water wells. The state obviously does not agree.

[Dog Gone]

LOL

[Clara Lou]

The Colorado River no longer drains into the ocean.
Texas's Colorado River [different from the Colorado River you are speaking of] is completely contained within Texas and does drain into the Gulf of Mexico. See #7 on this map.

[Dog Gone]

[mountainlyons]

I live in Colorado and the lawsuits from California seem more in the news. Actually the Big Thompson river goes close to my place and a lot of diverted water goes to eastern Colorado and a bunch is gobbled up by denver.

[Clara Lou]

I didn't know that the Colorado River flowed into the Gulf of Mexico.
See post #45.

[Arthalion]

This should be simple enough to prove or dispel. 5 feet a century works out to about 1.5 cm a year in subsidence. A rate that high could be easily detected using some of our laser altitude mapping satellites, laser reflectors, or any number of other mapping technologies.

Heck, at that rate you could detect subsidence with ROCKS just by checking your watch and shadow locations on the equinoxes (if the position of the crust is subsiding relative to the curvature of the planet, the exact moment of sunrise as measured between two aligned and fixed rocks should change very slightly).

[sonofatpatcher2]

It is just me or is this whole argument completely overlooking the use of GPS to determine whether the land is sinking and if so, the rate of sinking?

[Dog Gone]

I thought GPS was location, not altitude.

[sonofatpatcher2]

New Orleans would already be high and dry if the Corps of Engineers had not acted. Had the Old River Control Structure (Which my late Father Managed in the 1950s) not been built, the Mighty Mississippi would have changed course down the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf west of a Dry New Orleans.

It is still a possibility the Mississippi will someday go down the Atchafalaya...

See: http://www.tulane.edu/~bfleury/envirobio/enviroweb/FloodControl.htm

[sonofatpatcher2]

GPS also shows altitude. Last year we used it on a trout fishing trip to Groundhog Lake in Colorado. That little bugger showed us rising and falling the entire trip from Dallas to there and back.

[Dog Gone]

Then I can't explain why that isn't the definitive answer.

[BIGLOOK]

The time has come to allow offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. This will benefit our energy demands and lower the level of the Gulf, making room for all that Mississippi mud.

President Bush, get Halliburton on the phone..... this is a national emergency!

[dogbowl]

"The report centers on the humble benchmark, a small metal disk bolted to the ground, that provides a standard elevation above sea level for land surveying and mapping as well as determining flood-prone areas."

I suspect Gilligan is moving the benchmark further out to sea with the lobster traps again.

[Flux Capacitor]

----By century's end, much of southern Louisiana may sink into the Gulf of Mexico.----

Yeah?

This is a problem?

-Dan

[anniegetyourgun]

I'm not convinced it would be a loss.

[Servant of the 9]

I'm involved in a dispute with the state of Texas over just such a situation. Much of my company's land is now underwater and that was caused by water wells drilled in the 1940s. The subsidence is up to nine feet.

At stake is who owns the minerals under a producing gas well, and over a million dollars is in dispute.

This article can't help at all.

The Courts have been a little too 'imaginative' at times on quirky mineral rights, like deciding that they could be adverse possessed, good luck.

SO9

[Servant of the 9]

only relative readings can be made from a bench mark. One would have to drill down below where no movement is possible and install a concrete pier or what ever but then you would need to take reading at a constant temperature of the pier. Then take an average reading from sea level after facturing in the rise of the oceans from silt from the land the world over.

Since the subsidence postulated is caused by movement in shale formations 20,000 feet down, it is gonna take a lot of concrete.
GPS can provide accuracy to inches when thousands of readings taken over time.

It's gonna have to be a 'top down' solution.

SO9