Sacrificing rivers? And why not a lake or six, too?

Rat has been reading with great interest the most recent issue of The Flow, the River Alliance's newsletter. This issue is all about the connection between food, farming and rivers. Lot's of intriguing stuff in there...not the least of all the comment made by a "high level" state official, who thinks, “We may have to sacrifice a few rivers to grow the food we need to grow.” Well, at least now we know where some of our "leaders" stand, I suppose.

I was a little suspect when I read in there that, "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't" -- "it" being a lot of groundwater pumping for agriculture drying up lakes and rivers in sandy central Wisconsin. For the Rat, it's obvious -- you pump a bunch of water through big wells, you're bound to dry up the nearby lakes and rivers that depend on that very same groundwater.

Wisconsin Public Television's latest entry in water issues takes on the delusion, expressed in their piece by a potato farmer, that we have plenty of water and don't worry, be happy. In central Wisconsin, we have a case of good science undermining the myth and, implicitly asking, "Whose water is it, anyway?" Watch and learn: http://wpt2.org/npa/IW808.CFM