Lets talk about Flooding in Minnesota.

Spring is soon here and the talk of flooding in Minnesota is all the rage.

Keeping in mind that Minnesota is a vast area with widely varied and unique geography and topography...

Let's go back to basics.

There are about five real big variables, aside from unique geography, that determine the magnitude of a "Flood".

In no particular order, some of the things you need to get a real good flood here in Minnesota are....

1) A wet fall. Going into winter with thoroughly saturated ground with a high water table evident by full lakes, swamps, creeks and rivers.

2) A hard freeze prior to heavy snow cover. A hard deep frostline. The saturated soils freeze and become impermeable down to relatively deep depths.

3) A winter with lots of snow with lots of water content.

4) A strong warming that provides a quick thawing of the snowpack.

followed by a

5) A wet rainy spring.

Each drainage basin has its own situation. Minnesota is large. The Blue Earth is unique as is the Saint Louis or The Red River.

The Red is on the flat bottom of a ten thousand year dead marginal glacial lake. It is a river that drains a large area.

It winds its way slowly on the table flat silt bed, finding the slightly lower ground which, overall, leads north. North to Hudson Bay.

The headwaters of the Red River of the North typical thaws before the downstream half, north of the Canadian border.

Often, the flowing water backs up when it meets the ice dams where the floating growlers stack up and stop flow. This was well understood long before the European settlers arrived.

In the bottom land of the Red River basin, once the water rises high enough, the river overtops the natural levies of the riverbanks and quickly sprawls across the very flat terrain directly bordering the river.

Because it is so flat it may travel laterally for miles with just one foot of increased surface elevation.

And tributary streams from higher elevations may experience the effects of this back up.

Grand Forks is named Grand Forks for a reason.

Water will always seek its own elevation. The farther the fall the more energy involved, and faster falls are usually more dramatic then slow.

But not always.

The St. Louis falls fast, the Minnesota and the Red fall slowly, for example.

Water is heavy, "a pint's a pound the whole world round" is an old truism from the sea. Try to walk across a small flowing stream and you will understand the power of moving water.

Six inches of flowing water will move a car sideways.

To control the water you must control the energy.

ALARM: MPCA FRIGHTENS CHILDREN/ELDERLY. DISREGARD!

To anyone looking in on Minnesota from outside our borders I wish to make some corrections.

The air is fine, I was outside all yesterday near Stillwater and it was a beautiful forty degree day with lots of snow melting and water running and the sun was out and everything.

Today looks to be very much the same.
Gorgeous.

That's not the way THE STATE saw it.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was issuing an Air Pollution Health Alert.

They have a five level color coded air Quality Index.

Very similar to the much ridiculed five level Defense Condition [DefCon]that was brought to civilian-land after the attacks in New York. You know, the color coded threat level stuff.

But if you really want to see a bunch of goofy, pith helmet wearing, vest clad, map and chart waiving paranoid militants pushing buttons and sounding alarms... and threatening you and your childrens' way of life.... Go to the Environmental desk of any government agency.

And if you want to see some of the real goggle eyed napoleons hunched over maps, go to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

I used to live on a Submarine capable of carrying nuclear ballistic missiles. I used to live in the land of DefCon and Air Alerts, and Water Rationing, and heavy security and lots of I.D. checks, and very limited space. There was a logical reason for these things, especially out in the middle of the ocean, however I ended my enlistment to get away from these things and enjoy life in free America. Back home in Minnesota.

The MPCA thinks we need to live like we are on a submarine. Well there is no need to, and I refuse.

I will use all the water I want, the even odd water days are un-Minnesotan and an abomination, build more water towers, you money squandering bureaucrats.

I will sprawl out if I so chose, and where are the good roads we should expect from the huge sums of cash going to the Dept. of Transportation, even with that huge parasite, light rail, sucking nutrients from the host. There is still lots and lots of money, why do our roads suck?

I will not be quiet. I will drive what I want, where I want, when I want on sea, land or air, and I will be parking it on my property.

I will eat what I want, get you face out of my plate.

If I want a gun I will get one.

If I want to smoke I will.

I will not be worrying about every little particulate, and I will not be waking up to toy alarms over false threats to play commune with a bunch of overpaid busy-body Gladys Kravits.

If you don't like it, that's your problem. And your not my problem, until you become my problem.

And if you work at the MPCA, DNR, U.S Fish and Wildlife, EPA..... you unfortunately have probably become my problem.

Now the well paid irrational paranoids are using their chicken-little alarm system to lobby for more rules and money.

It worked with the lakes and the new sales tax on the constitution for the "outdoors and arts", it worked for the increase in the gas tax brought to you last session, it worked to fund the light rail nonsense, and it may also work to stop electrical generation by coal fired power plants....we shall see.

Look into the unswimmable and unfishable designation given to forty percent of tested waters.

Bah! We are surrounded by clean water... ask Mayor R.T. Rybak (D), his advertisements to come to Minneapolis claim so, and Minneapolis has the "dirtiest" water according to the MPCA.

Minnesota has clean water, clear air, and abundant natural resources, not that THE STATE would have you believe it. Heck, now they're working the mercury angle to smash the Big Stone Power Plant. The heck with the peoples desire for cheap electricity, they know better than us.

If all coal plants on the planet shutdown today, at least 95% of atmospheric Mercury emissions would still exist.

Mercury is natural and is naturally present in the atmosphere, and the fish. There has been fish in museums from long ago tested and they had mercury.

But the war on the elements continues...Lead, Mercury, Freon, Carbon.
The war continues and we are losing.
FCW



Here is some data from THE STATE....

MPCA News Releases
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/news/data/newsRelease.cfm?NR=280540&type=2

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has Issued an Air Pollution Health Alert

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 03/05/2009
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has issued an Air Pollution Health Alert due to fine particle pollution for southwest and central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities, St. Cloud, Marshall, and Brainerd effective immediately and running through the end of the day Friday March, 6th. An Air Pollution Health Advisory with pollution levels approaching the alert level has been issued for Duluth and Rochester. ....

-and-
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/aqi-subscribe.html

MPCA Home > Air > Air Quality Index (AQI) > MPCA Air Pollution Alert System Sign-up
Air Quality IndexMPCA Air Pollution Alert System Sign-up

As of July 1st, 2008 the MPCA is delivering Air Quality Notifications via EnviroFlash. EnviroFlash delivers air quality forecasts and MPCA issued Air Pollution Health Alerts directly to you via email or text message. EnviroFlash gives you instant air quality information that you can customize for your own needs, allowing you to protect the health of yourself and your family.

To subscribe to EnviroFlash please visit http://mn.enviroflash.info

Questions about the Air Quality Index or MPCA Air Pollution Health Alerts can be addressed to:
Mark Sulzbach
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
520 Lafayette Road N
St. Paul, MN 55155
mark.sulzbach@pca.state.mn.us
651-757-2770

Cassie McMahon
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
520 Lafayette Road N
St. Paul, MN 55155
cassie.mcmahon@pca.state.mn.us
651-757-2564