Salt creeping up the Mississippi River
Source: CNN
A drought in Louisiana has lowered the Mississippi River, leaving its southern tip awash in saline from the Gulf of Mexico and prompting health officials in Plaquemines Parish to issue a drinking water advisory.
"The water's perfectly safe to drink," said Guy Laigast, director of the parish's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, in a telephone interview Wednesday. "It's just got the elevated salt."
With the mighty Mississippi near its all-time low, the salty water has crept in as a wedge, he said. Because salty water is denser than fresh, it tends to collect at lower depths, he said.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/15/us/louisiana-drinking-water/index.html
Nostradammit
(2,921 posts)"The air is perfectly safe to breathe, it's just got no oxygen in it."
aquart
(69,014 posts)Thank you, myopic deniers. We are utterly unprepared.
Lately I pray that I do not die of hunger or thirst.
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)trof
(54,256 posts)Many homeowners in coastal Alabama (on city water systems) have wells for watering shrubs and lawns. It's cheaper than using city water.
A few years ago residents of Ono Island (Google it. It's in Alabama) saw lawns and shrubs turning brown and dying in spite of daily watering. They called in a state horticulturist.
She tested a few wells and told them "You're watering with salt water."
Yep, they'd sucked the natural aquifer dry and salt water had come in to fill the void.
raccoon
(31,130 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)oil refineries...but people called me an alarmist. Just saying
jsr
(7,712 posts)"It's just got the elevated salt."
Sky Masterson
(5,240 posts)bluedigger
(17,088 posts)Maybe a little up north. In fact, a FB friend from New Orleans just posted this morning, complaining about 50 straight days of thunderstorms, and of turning into a frog.
Unfortunately, the Mississippi River does not receive most of it's water from Louisiana, and conditions upriver are much worse...