New year floods in Missouri, Illinois, and Congress still has no clue. Happy new year, Love and light and insight to all.

Elected and appointed officials are not likely to come up with a coherent or common sense long range plan to deal with the worsening issues of water on this continent. Some for lack of a real life perspective of the problem. Some influenced by large amounts of money from those that stand to profit from water, and the continuation of the political insanity in America.
 Any way we look at it, it is a giant problem. In 2015 terrible drought from Arkansas to the west coast, Massive floods from Texas to the east coast. 

Giant dams and water systems are not the answer, but a vast continent wide system of local and regional, small and medium water control systems to store, control, move, clean, and use this water, as well as produce electricity to move this water.

Using Hydrodynamic systems, Siphon systems, ram pumps, archimedes pumps,
Also we must refill our water tables. Agricultural systems like permaculture will help slow flooding, along with infiltration ponds and water storage and control systems to move water to the driest places at the time of great rains and floods. 

Micro-hydro Electric systems for pumping water and electricity.
Ram pumps, for moving water up hill. Refilling the water table of the whole continent is of paramount importance.

First to deal with the water problem we must end the destruction of our water, Fracking, tar sand extraction and so on. Agriculture in the style of war, glyphosate herbicide  also called roundup has many problems,  including binding minerals in the body making them unavailable in the process of turning good fats into hormones.   2,4-D which is half of the agent orange defoliant used in the Vietnam war and known to cause cancer.   Atrazine which is know to cause frogs to spontaneously change sex and to cause breast, uterine and testicular cancer, etc. Many are Biocides and, or  cause endocrine disruption, that are destroying our ocean and the health of our people and biosphere generally.  Industrial pollution and plastic going into the oceans. 

We must have
Many vast constructed wetlands on rivers and streams to remove nitrogen, phosphorus and other chemicals and things like plastic, etc, before this water gets to the oceans.

We must come up with a plan to capture as much of the Methane coming out of the permafrost and arctic ocean areas.

Reforestation of the continent from the west to the east. Prevailing wind is mostly from the west in North America in summer.  Trees are a great way to get water in the air and are an excellent way to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

Regenerative and restorative agriculture systems. Not just sustainable agriculture.

For a great look at water issues world wide see the WaterWired blog.

Huge volcano of methane spews out of California. Why should we care about this invisible gas?

This is enough evidence for me that we have a problem. To be frank I get a bit anxious when I review this kind of thing. Either way it was created, by melting of a pingo hole in the arctic, or from methane on the continental shelf, it is still and an indicator that we must do something about the methane.  This hole in the tundra, or a plume in the ocean, must be a wake up call. We must come up with some ways to collect this methane and use it. How about something like a giant upside down umbrella or several, that are connected to a hose going to a tanker truck or a tanker ship on the ocean. This can be used for growing algae for fuel, or in agriculture or greenhouses or for heating our greenhouses or buildings, or just used in traditional gas fired power plants. Any of this will be better than letting it out in the biosphere. We have real serious mess to clean up but one of the most important thing is to stop stop the stupid stuff like this. I hope and pray as a culture we can do better soon.

In  the L.A.  area a giant leak from a gas storage facility has been leaking for months. Meanwhile, in California, Governor Jerry Brown  declared a state of emergency  Wednesday, January 6th in the Los Angeles neighborhood where an uncontrollable methane gas leak has spewed more than 150 million pounds of methane into our Biosphere.
It is good to talk about problems, and also I think at this time it would be good for a shift in our thinking towards coming up with and implementing solutions.

How about a national methane company owned by state and local governments. The like of Exxon, BP (British Petroleum) Have shown themselves to be untrustworthy of being responsible corporate citizens if you believe that corporations are really persons. These mega corporations should be prosecuted as persons, and all of there upper level executives for there misdeeds. Any excess money from these ventures can go to a permanent sustainable and green infrastructure. This must be a start to decentralization. Local people will know what is happening and what must be done in their area where they live sooner than a federal agency in DC.

I know a lot of Smart people visit this blog of  Thom's. Maybe we cane find some other people who can help out, or come up with some good Ideas .