[Saint John] Transportation and Infrastructure

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

If Saint John and the maritimes as a whole are suddenly facing water shortages, perhaps we need to look at solutions to harvest fog? They do exist.

In Chile they have some very innovative, cost effective fog collection tower projects.



Coastal fog-harvesting tower, Huasco, Chile


Coastal fog-harvesting tower, Huasco, Chile
The wooden structure in January 2010 is covered with the rain harvesting skin by April 2010.


Coastal fog-harvesting tower, Huasco, Chile
The wooden structure.


Coastal fog-harvesting tower, Huasco, Chile
The tower is 200m high, catching each water particle in the air that comes from the coast to the valley of Huasco River.


Coastal fog-harvesting tower, Huasco, Chile
4: Water capture process.


I know just from the trees in my backyard the immense potential that exists to harvest fog in Saint John. Sometimes it will be raining in the backyard, but just foggy in the front yard, because there's not an abundant tree canopy collecting fog drip. Now that I think about it, the loss of fog drip in Lorneville could impact the water table in Lorneville depending on how many trees actually get cut down for the industrial park. Just one more reason we should be exploring solutions to harvest fog that can be constructed a lot quicker than a tree takes the grow.

I find it quite surprising that a city as historically foggy and wet as Saint John could have such water scarcity issues after one extremely dry year.

I really think there's gotta be some novel, innovative ways to harvest more of the fog that many complain about so much.