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.

The Engine that is Minnesota.

I was taught four cycle theory as a sonarman. The information that can be attained from the radiant sound from a running engine is rather impressive to the uninitiated.

Number of engines, two cycle or four, number of cylinders, engine firing rate, cylinder firing rate, crank-shaft, cam shaft, gears, turbine, blowers, oil pumps, auxiliaries, gear ratios....

But to tease out the clues you have to first understand how they work. A sonarman understands engines.

The four cycle and two cycle theory is how we describe the actions relevant to the cylinder, piston, valves and crankshaft of an internal combustion engine.

I compare the standard operating procedure of the Minnesota Legislature to that of a four cycle engine.

It is a circular series of events and can be described as phases.

We have already completed the "Exhaust Phase", where the piston rises in the cylinder while the exhaust valve is open, expelling the exhaust fumes and uncombusted fuel air mixture from the last cycle.

Inside the cylinder at Saint Paul the piston began to rise in January as the old bad air was expelled from the last sessions rancor and the elections harshness.

The "Intake Phase" has the piston descending with the exhaust valve shut and the intake valve open, allowing a fuel air mixture to enter the space above the descending piston.

The Saint Paul Capitol is entering this phase and we shall soon see the fuel air mixture about to enter the space above the deficit.

The exhaust valve is shut and the deficit continues to descend. As nature abhors a vacuum the Minnesota Constitution requires a balanced budget.

The DFL valve appears to be wide open and increased fuel flow will be the natural result.

Here come the proposed tax hikes.

From here we can look forward to the legislature going into the "Compression Phase". Like the engine the piston rises with all valves shut. Temperature and pressure will increase.

After that is the "Power Phase" where the fuel air mixture is consumed in a controlled explosion that supplies the energy to drive through the non power phases as well as do the work the engine is designed to do.

The engine that is the Minnesota Legislature is running on a fuel mixture that is too rich. It is tied to an ever increasing load that already is beyond the original design. The RPMs (revolutions per minute) are too great and its been years since there has been a cool down cycle.

I believe we may exceed the capacity for the radiator to dispel all this excess heat, we may see a blown hose or two.

We should give the engine an opportunity to cool down.
We may, the whole thing may shut down for a while just prior to the "Power Phase".

Restarting is always a laborious and greasy operation.

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

Marching into March

It is March in Minnesota.
Today the temperature will get above freezing and the last snow fall will settle into itself.

The Minnesota Legislature is pulsing with pride and power. Its full steam ahead.

The fresh Federal notes printed for future generations to regret, are arriving and helping to defer the pain and real choices that must eventually be accepted here in Minnesota as well as Washington D.C.

The state House is moving forward on all kinds of nonsense. Including returning to emission testing for autos along with more carbon credit and carbon mitigating and behavior modification programs.

There is much on the "Green/Global Warming" front. "Alternative" Energy, eco($)buildings, autos, billion dollar light rail, rapid transit, carbon cap and trade here in Minnesota....

Based on the phantom menace of Global Warming. We all suffer. and will more so.
There are many ways to ration commodities.

And change peoples behavior. Limit miles driven, business operating, fuels used....

Read the publications from the house and senate. [Session Weekly and Senate Briefly]

The DFL love to set prices and change behavior. They fear free Minnesotans.

We had a good snowfall at the end of this week. Thursday it fell for hours then Friday was bright and clear (and cold) and all the trees in white. I love Minnesota.

Meanwhile the Minnesota Legislature appears to be on a path to raise taxes or shutdown operations till they are raised.

The Democrat Farmer Labor (DFL) party of Minnesota is in majority in the House and Senate (and Judiciary). The Governor is a Republican who has already had his veto of a gas tax increase over-ridden in a previous session.

D.C. Has Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Minnesota has Larry Pogemiller and Margaret Anderson-Kelleher.

In Washington they think the Federal government should spend lots more and regulate "better".

In Saint Paul it is very much the same. On both fronts, some organized resistance seems to be slowly forming.

Here in Minnesota all levels of government are looking for money from on high. The Cities want it from the counties, (and some from the State/Feds). The counties look for it from the State and the State expects it from the Feds.

And they all expect it from you.

A lousy way to run a railroad if you ask me, but we've seen how they run railroads.

Saint Paul, Duluth, Rochester, Minneapolis all say they have to lay off police and fire department workers, and plow the streets less, if they don't get their Local Government Assistance "LGA" check from the State.

Duluth is a fiscal basket case after decades of Democratic leadership. Come to Duluth, we have an aquarium.

Rochester after helping shutdown the expansion of a local private railroad through town, is now lobbying for government to run a railroad through town.

The DFL seem intractable on the position of raising "revenue" to maintain "services".
It looks like normal, waste time posturing till the big stand off at the end.

The DFL went on a State wide tour badmouthing the Governors' budget, they didn't have one of their own to offer as an alternative, oh no we're here just to pick apart the Governor, thank you very much.

I see a special session (or two) and possibly a "government shutdown" on the horizon. Which is just a taxpayer funded extra holiday for the government workers. [Minnesota is the largest employer in the state.]

And we've seen the hardball personal politics they play. Dan Ocksner, from the radio station I listen to when at my folks house in Sartell: KNSI 1450am, was denied press access to the Legislature. He had normal press access in the past, but I guess his politics became less than appropriate or some such nonsense...who knows.

And shutting down all staff hiring, not to save money but because the Republican caucus was in the process of hiring a chief of staff. And there are thousands of other examples, big and small, of the "progressives" using the law, or their position, like a club to quiet down any opposition.

Pogemiller and the others are hardball politicians who have no problem at all using whatever they have at their disposal to forward their agenda and take down the opposition.

Just ask Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau

The Minnesota State Government Departments and Agencies are full of people who think and act the same way.

The opposition is strong, organized, and entrenched. The challenge is great and hopefully those involved and those getting involved will realize the magnitude of the problem.

To make any real headway on this I think we need to move boldly and swiftly.
It is too big to chew on the edges.

I think we could pass a bill to abolish the Minnesota Department of Tourism. We don't need the government to entice people to come to Minnesota, they do so naturally.

If not that, how about the Minnesota Film Board.
What do ya say, throw me a bone will ya?

A long week.

Well I have been working with a tree service out of Stillwater.
However I have been able to follow the doings in Saint Paul from the web, the "news" papers and the ch 17 feed sometimes.

Last week the expected appears to become the actual... and staying with the theme outlined in their discussions earlier this month, the Minnesota legislature expects the Obama administration [Federal Government] to Dispense trainloads of cash to the States, especially the "democratic" ones.

Minnesota has a budget deficit of 5 to 7 billion dollars, depending on who you ask.

Minnesota's budget has a growth curve that makes Al Gores "hockey stick" look like a crooked line scratched in the sand. (which is what it really is)

Our Constitution requires a balanced budget.

{When I left the service in the 80's, and began my "education", Minnesota's Biennial budget was in the neighborhood of 8 billion dollars.}

It will be interesting to see if real dollars actually follow these promises and how many are on that train from D.C. and who's name is on the individual packets.

The Minnesota Budget really should balance.

Govenor Proposes Business Tax Cuts / Education Reform....

I am watching the State of the State address by the Governor.

He is proposing reducing business tax rate from 9 to 4.8% over six years. (immediately would be better but still....)

25% tax credit for small business.
100% sales tax exemption instead of tax credits.

He is still talking green jobs.
He suggests a green tax zone like a jobz zone.

He is also talking education...
Job performance...

Education increases in funding, but with major overhauls.
Parent reviews.

Minimum entrance standards for teachers, like pharmacists for example.
Increase pay for effective teachers for results (Q-comp.) as opposed to seniority.

The increase he proposes amounts to a 5% increase for education.
He suggests a 2% increase for each result meeting student.

Also he wants to redo the way we settle school negotiating, like in 40 other states.
Management should also be changed, more bulk purchasing rather that district purchasing.

College and University should go more to online teaching and less on "brick and mortar".

25% of credits delivered on line by 20??. (I missed the deadline date)
Firm cap on tuition increases...
and lots of other things, this should get interesting.

Then he went to "Human Services" programs due to increase by 19% and must be changed.

Government employees, like business will experience lay offs, but to reduce them we should have a pay freeze for 2 years.

Most County functions are duplicated, they should work together more.

We should reduce or eliminate as many State mandates as possible and allow local Governments be able to vote to "opt out" of mandates.

I think much is good in here, it will be interesting to see how the Legislature deals with it.