(Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis, July 11). Senior citizens dont go to wave parks. A retired engineer suggested a rather outlandish-in-scope but logical-in-approach solution to the seemingly growing floods in the central U.S. and the water woes of the West Coast - build a nearly 1,500-mile aqueduct to connect the two. But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.. Others said the costs of an Arizona-Mexico desalination plant would also likely prove infeasible. How can we bring water from Mississippi river to west, Arizona - Quora Even if the government could clear these hurdles, the odds that Midwestern states would just let their water go are slim. To be talking about pipe dreams, when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. It was the Bureau of Reclamation. Its much easier to [propose] a shining pipeline from the Mississippi River that will never be built than it is to grapple with this really unpleasant truth.. As the West bakes, Utah forges ahead with water pipeline I think it would be foolhardy to dismiss it as not feasible, said Richard Rood, professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Savor that while your lawns are dying. Booming Utah metro wants to pipe in water from Lake Powell so it can Still, its physically possible. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. A Canadian entrepreneur's plan published in 1991 diverted water from eastern British Columbia to the Columbia River, then envisioned a 300-mile pipeline from the river through Oregon to a reservoir near Alturas, California. Absolutely. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. When that happens, it wont be just tourists and recreational boaters who will suffer. And several approved diversions draw water from the Great Lakes. Leading environmental engineering firm to study alternative water As an engineer, I can guarantee you that it is doable, Viadero said. Scientists estimate a football field's worth of Louisiana coast is lost every 60 to 90 minutes. As recently as 2021, the Arizona state legislature urged Congress to fund a technological and feasibility study of a diversion dam and pipeline scheme to harvest floodwater from the Mississippi River to replenish the Colorado River. But there are tons of things that can be done but arent ever done.. To be talking about pipe dreams when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. No, lets talk about her, Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, 15 arrested across L.A. County in crackdown on fraudulent benefit cards, Calmes: Heres what we should do about Marjorie Taylor Greene, Column: Did the DOJ just say Donald Trump can be held accountable for Jan. 6? Sharing Mississippi water with California would help feed America - Yahoo! But, he said, the days of mega-pipelines in the U.S. are likely over due to lack of environmental and political will. So moving water that far away to supplement the ColoradoRiver, I don't think is viable. A drive up Interstate 5 shows how muchland has been fallowed due tolack of water. We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. Why hasn't the U.S. built an aqueduct or pipeline to divert - Quora A multi-state compact already prohibits any sale of water from the Great Lakes unless all bordering states agree to it, and its almost certain that Mississippi River states would pass laws restricting water diversions, or file lawsuits against western states, if the project went forward. The mountains are green now but that could be harmful during wildfire season. Yet some smaller-scale projects have become reality. In northwestern Iowa, a river has repeatedly been pumped dry by a rural water utility that sells at least a quarter of the water outside the state. The memorial also suggests that the pipeline could be used as stormwater infrastructure to prevent regular flooding along the . Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. Nonetheless, Siefkes trans-basin pipeline proposal went viral, receiving nearly half a million views. No. An in-depth feasibility study specifically on pumping Mississippi River water to the West hasnt been conducted yet to Larsons knowledge. Water is the new oil: Piping Lake Superior water West? In southeastern California,officials at the Imperial Irrigation District, which is entitled toby far the largest share of Colorado River water, say any move to strip theirrights would result in legal challenges that could last years. All three officials said the construction of a45-mile Delta Water Project tunnel to keep supply flowing from the middle of the state to thirsty cities in the south isvital. The driver of the truck was not injured. . Snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains have swelled to more than 200% their normal size, and snowfall across the rest of the Colorado River Basin is trending above average, too. Instead, California is focused on better managing the water we have, improving forecasting, and making our groundwater basins more sustainable.. There are at least half a dozen major water pipeline projects under consideration throughout the region, ranging from ambitious to outlandish. Power from its hydroelectric dams would boost U.S. electricity supplies. It is time to think outside the box of rain. By George Skelton Capitol Journal Columnist Aug. 30, 2021 5 AM PT SACRAMENTO The award for dumbest idea of the recall election goes to the rookie Democrat who proposed building a water. Precedents set by other diversion attempts, like those that created the Great Lakes Compact, also cast doubt over the political viability of any large-scale Mississippi River diversion attempt, said Chloe Wardropper, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor researching environmental governance. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants, excessive nutrients and invasive species. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. Water Pipeline: From Mississippi River To The West? - YouTube Las Vegas' grand proposal is to take water from the mighty Mississippi in a series of smaller pipeline-like exchanges among states just west of the Mississippi to refill the overused. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. Water Pipeline of America - Colorado-Mississippi Pipeline - Zamboanga The Mississippi used to flow through a delta full of bayous, shifting sad bars, And islets. But interest spans deeper than that. It dawned on Million that Colorado had unclaimed rights to water from the Green, since the river was part of the Colorado River system, and he devised a plan to build a pipeline that would pump water around the Rockies to the city of Fort Collins, where he lives. Arizonas main active management areas are in Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties, leaving much of rural Arizona water use unregulated. About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. When finished, the $62 billion project will link Chinas four main rivers and requiresconstruction of three lengthy diversion routes, one using as its basethe1,100-mile longHangzhou-to-Beijing canal, which dates from the 7th century AD. A multi-state pipeline could easily require decades before it delivers a drop of water," said Michael Cohen, senior researcher with the Pacific Institute. But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.. Were not looking for the last dollar out of this project, he told me. A pipeline taking water from the Missouri River west makes perfect sense, if you don't care about money, energy, or the environment. The price tag for construction would add to this hefty bill, along with the costs of powering the equipment needed to pump the water over the Western Continental Divide. Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. 10/4/2021. of Engineers has turned back official requests for more water from the Missouri River to alleviate shortages on the Mississippi. Meanwhile, a rookie Democrat running for governor in Californias recall election last year proposed declaring a state of emergency in order to build a similar project. The Great Lakes Compact, signed by President George W. Bush in 2008,bans large waterexportsoutside of the areawithout the approval of all eight states bordering them andinput fromOntario and Quebec. No. Why does California want to build a $16 billion water pipeline? California Departmentof Water Resourcesspokeswoman Maggie Maciasin an email: In considering the feasibility of a multi-state water conveyance infrastructure, the extraordinary costs that would be involved in planning, designing, permitting, constructing, and then maintaining and operating such a vast system of infrastructure would be significant obstacles when compared to the water supply benefits and flood water reduction benefits that it would provide. Fort, the University of New Mexico professor, worries that the bigwigs who throw their energy behind large capital projects may be neglecting other, more practical options. But in the face of continuing, ever-worsening drought and ongoing growth of the cities of the desert Southwest, is there a better idea out there? Grist is powered by WordPress VIP. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. Proponents of these projects argue that they could stabilize western cities for decades to come, connecting populations with unclaimed water rights. Two hundred miles north of New Orleans, in the heart of swampy Cajun country, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1963 cut a rogue arm of the Mississippi River in half with giant levees to keep the main river intact and flowing to the Gulf of Mexico. The idea's been dismissed for as long as it's. And there are several approved diversions that draw water from the Great Lakes. Can the Mississippi River save Arizona? - wmicentral.com Studies and modern-day engineering have proven that such projects are possible but would require decades of construction and billions of dollars. This would take 254 days to fill.. 00:00 00:00 An unknown error. Releasing more water downstream would come at the expense of upstream users . Precedents set by other diversion attempts, like those that created the Great Lakes Compact, also cast doubt over the political viability of any large-scale Mississippi River diversion attempt, said Chloe Wardropper, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor researching environmental governance. Could massive water pipelines solve the West's drought crisis? | Grist In 2012, the U.S. Department of the Interiors Bureau of Reclamation completed the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken within the Colorado River Basin at the time, which analyzed solutions to water supply issues including importing water from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Hydrologic Unit Code 07110009. Heres why thats wise, Nicholas Goldberg: How I became a tool of Chinas giant anti-American propaganda machine, Opinion: Girls reporting sexual abuse shouldnt have to fear being prosecuted. "The engineering is feasible. The Southern Delivery System in the nearby Arkansas River Basin pipes water from Pueblo County more than 60 miles north to Colorado Springs, Fountain and Security. This One thousand mile long pipeline could move water from the Eastern USA (Great Lakes, Ohio River, Missouri River, and Mississippi River) to the Colorado River via the Mississippi River. Facebook, Follow us on No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. Pipeline from the Mississippi River to Colorado? - Coyote Gulch About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. But grand ideas for guaranteeing water for the arid Westhave beenfloated for decades. Even smaller projects stand to be derailed by similar hiccups. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. An additional analysis emerged a decade later when Roger Viadero, an environmental scientist and engineer at Western Illinois University, and his graduate students assessed proposals suggested in last summers viral editorials. He said the most pragmatic approach would only pump Midwest water to the metro Denver area, to substitute forimports to the Front Range on the east side of the Rockies, avoiding "staggering" costs to pump water over the Continental Divide. Don't bother sending notices on conservation; they willbe ignored. Amid a major drought in the Western U.S., a proposed solution comes up repeatedly: large-scale river diversions, including pumping Mississippi River water to parched states. The ongoing drought in California has hit its fourth year. Many sawSiefkes' idea and others like it as sheer theft by a region that needs to fix its own woes. China, unlike the US, is unencumbered by NEPA, water rights and democratic processes in general. The price tag for construction would add to this hefty bill, along with the costs of powering the equipment needed to pump the water over the Western Continental Divide. Large amounts of fossil fuelenergy neededto pump water over the Rockies would increase the very climate change thats exacerbating the 1,200-year drought afflicting the Colorado River in the first place, said Newman, who in his previous job helped the state of Colorado design a long-term water conservation plan. Pumping Mississippi River water west: solution or dream? This latest version would curve up through the Wyoming flatlands and back down to Fort Collins, a distance of around 340 miles. The 2012 study didn't discount either option but. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. Siphon off a big portion, and youd be swapping oneecological catastrophe for another, said Audubons Johnson. This is the country that built the Hoover Dam, and where Los Angeles suburbs were created by taking water from Owens Lake. Buying land to secure water rights would also cost a chunk of cash, which leads to an even larger obstacle for such proposals: the legal and political hoops. Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. One proposed solution to the Colorado River Basin's water scarcity crisis has come up again and again: large-scale river diversions, including pumping Mississippi River water to the parched West . Buying land to secure water rights would cost a chunk of cash, too, which leads to an even larger obstacle for such proposals: the legal and political hoops. Who is going to come to the desert and use it? Reader support helps sustain our work. Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun, and co-authors USA Today'sClimate Point newsletter. Some plans call for a connection to. The concepts fell into a few large categories: pipe Mississippi or Missouri River water to the eastern side of the Rockies or to Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, bring icebergs in. after the growth in California . The other alternatives have political costs, and they have costs that are maybe more likely to be borne locally, including by farmers and other large water users, she said. Letter writers have asked why a water pipeline is not constructed from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. Widespread interest in the plan eventually fizzled. If officials approve this, the backlash willresult in everyone using as much water as wecare to. While they didnt outright reject the concepts, the experts laid out multi-billion-dollar price tags, including ever-higher fuel and power costs to pump water up mountains or over other geographic obstacles. The distance between Albuquerque, for example, and the Mississippi River perhaps the closest hypothetical starting point for such a pipeline is about 1,000 miles, crossing at least three. This summer, as seven states and Mexico push to meet a Tuesday deadline to agree on plans to shore up the Colorado River and itsshrivelingreservoirs, retired engineer Don Siefkes of San Leandro, California,wrote a letter to The Desert Sun with what he said was asolution to the West's water woes: build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure to Lake Powell, 1,489 miles west, to refill the Colorado River system with Mississippi River water. Western Water Woes - Is Big Infrastructure the Way to Go? Much of the sediment it was carrying was dropped in the slow moving water of the Delta. Why are they so hard to catch? My water, your water. The basic idea is to take water from the Mississippi River, pump it a thousand miles west, and dump it into the overtaxed Colorado River, which provides water for millions of Arizona residents but has reached historically low levels as its reservoirs dry up. YouTube, Follow us on Experts say those will require sacrifices but not as many as building a giant pipeline would require. A pipeline to the Mississippi River Perhaps the biggest achievement Paffrath said he would accomplish if elected governor would be to solve California's water crisis by building a. The diverted flow would require massive water tunnels, since a flow of 250,000. As western states grew over the twentieth century, the federal government helped them build several massive water diversion projects that would hydrate their growing urban populations: The Central Arizona Project aqueduct brought water from the Colorado River to Phoenix, for instance, and the Big Thompson system piped water across the Colorado Rockies to Denver. WATER WILL SOON be flowing from Lake Superior to the parched American Southwest. Not mentioned was the great grand-daddy of all schemes for re-allocating water, known as the North American Water and Power Authority Plan. LAS VEGAS -- Lake Mead has nearly set a new record when its water level measured at 1081.10 feet, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. The letter and others with an array of ideasgenerated hugeinterest from readers around the country and debate about whether the conceptsare technically feasible, politically possible orenvironmentally wise. USGS Surface Water for USA: Streamflow Measurements Twitter, Follow us on As a resident of Wisconsin, a state that borders the (Mississippi) river, let me say: This is never gonna happen, wrote Margaret Melville of Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Has no one noticed how much hotter the desert is getting, not to mention the increase in fires in our area. Can you solve drought by piping water across the country? - New York Times Seeking answers,The Desert Sun consultedwater experts, conservation groups and government officials for their assessments. An additional analysis emerged a decade later when Roger Viadero, an environmental scientist and engineer at Western Illinois University, and his graduate students assessed proposals suggested in last summers viral editorials. I think the feasibility study is likely to tell us what we already know, he said, which is that there are a lot less expensive, less complicated options that we can be investing in right now, like reducing water use. Run a pipeline a few hundred miles to the San Juan River in Pagosa Springs CO which drains into Lake Powell and you are good to go. Can drought-stricken CA get water from Midwest via pipeline? "We're going to start to see these reservoirs, which nine of them are already filled from the rain water, so then you add on snow melt and we may have some problems with that as far as flooding . Then take it out of the southern tip of the aquifer in Southern Colorado. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. "My son will never know what a six-gallon toilet looks like," she said. John Kaufman, the man who proposed the Missouri River pipeline, wants to see the artificial boundaries expand. Donate today to keep our climate news free. Formal large-scale water importation proposals have existed in the United States since at least the 1960s, when an American company devised the North American Water and Power Alliance to redistribute Alaskan water across the continent using reservoirs and canals. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. Diverting the Missouri River to the West: 'Can' Does Not - HuffPost Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. ", Westford of Southern California's Metropolitan Water District agreed. It's 2011 and the technology exists to build a series of water pipelines across the US, to channel flood water to holding tanks in other areas, and to supply water to drought stricken areas. Its largestdam would be 1,700 feet tall, more than twice the height of Hoover Dam. For him, thatincludessetting aside at leastportions of the so-called "Law of the River," a complicated, century-old set of legal agreements that guarantees farmers in Southern California the largest share of water. The memorial is seeking Mississippi River water as a solution to ongoing shortages on the Colorado River as water levels reach historic lows in the two largest reservoirs on the river, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. What if our droughts get worse? Opinion: California gave up on mandating COVID vaccines for schoolchildren. So come on out for the plastic Marilyn on our dashboard, and stay for the stupendous waste of water, electricity and clean air. Plus, the federal report found the water would be of much lower quality than other western water sources. Do we have the political will? Newsom said the state must capture 100 million metric tons of carbon each year by 2045 about a quarter of what the state now emits annually.
