Inspired by Mao Zedong, who in 1952 observed, "The south has plenty of water and the north lacks it, so if possible why not borrow some?" after the growth in California . Million sued, and he says he expects a ruling this year. Viaderos team estimated that the sale of the water needed to fill the Colorado Rivers Lake Powell and Lake Mead the largest reservoirs in the country would cost more than $134 billion at a penny a gallon. It is time to think outside the box of rain. he said. Its possible that the situation gets so dire that there is an amount of money out there that could overcome all of these obstacles, Larson said. It would cost at least $1,700 per acre-feet of water, potentially yield 600,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2060 and take 30 years to construct. Paffrath proposed building a pipeline from the Mississippi River to bring water to drought-stricken California. Parsons said theplanwould replenishthe upper Missouri and Mississippi Rivers during dry spells, increase hydropower along the Columbia Riverand stabilize the Great Lakes. The federal Bureau of Reclamation has already looked at piping 600,000 acre-feet of water a year from either the Missouri or the Mississippi. USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. The Nevada Legislature is considering a bill that, if passed, would require restaurants to only provide water upon customer request. Posted on: February 7, 2023, 02:30h. Over the years, a proposed solution has come up again and again: large-scale river diversions, including pumping Mississippi River water to the parched west. The sharing of water would greatly contribute to California being able to feed the nation. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. 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. A water pipeline like Millions would help, if he could wave a magic wand and build it, but Fort believes the present scramble over the Colorado River will likely make such projects impossible to realize. All rights reserved. Water use has gone down 40% per capita in recent years, said Coffey. 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. China, unlike the US, is unencumbered by NEPA, water rights and democratic processes in general. Still, its physically possible. While the much-needed water has improved conditions in the parched West, experts warn against claiming victory. Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. I find it interesting that households have to watch how much water theyare usingfor washing clothes, wateringlawns, washing cars,etc. Politics are an even bigger obstacle for making multi-state pipelines a reality. Its one of dozens of letters the paperhas received proposing or vehemently opposing schemes to fix the crashing Colorado River system, which provides water to nearly 40 million people and farms in seven western states. of Engineers has turned back official requests for more water from the Missouri River to alleviate shortages on the Mississippi. The elephant in the room, according to Fort, is agriculture, which accounts for more than 80 percent of water withdrawals from the Colorado River. after the growth in California . Reader support helps sustain our work. YouTube star and Democratic political novice Kevin Paffrath proposed the Mississippi River pipeline last week during a debate among candidates seeking to replace Gov. Latitude 3853'06", Longitude 9010'51" NAD27. As apractical matter, Famiglietti, a Universityof Saskatchewan hydrology professor who tracks water basins worldwide via NASA satellite data, saidMississippi River states also experiencedry spells, and the watershed, the fourth largest in the world, also ebbs and flows. "I started withtoilets, I was the toilet queen of L.A.," said Westford. 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.. Los Angeles-area water districts have implemented much of what Famiglietti mentioned. Physically, some could be achieved. 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? 2023 www.desertsun.com. Letter writers have asked why a water pipeline is not constructed from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. What states in the Southwest have failed to do is curtail growth and agriculture that is, of course, water-driven. And, here in the land of the midnight 90-degree temperatures, we are building our very own ice hockey rink, because there is more than enough electricity to freeze that body of water and keep the arena cold enough to keep the ice from melting. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants, excessive nutrients, and invasive species. Most recently, the Arizona state legislature passed a measure in 2021 urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its flow. We have already introduced invasive species all over the continentzebra mussels, quagga mussels, grass carp, spiny water flea, lampreys, ru. For as long as this idea has been proposed. 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. It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.. 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. Design and build by Upstatement. 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. The Arizona Legislature wants the federal government to study the feasibility of constructing a pipeline . Makes me wonder how this got this far, whose interests are being served and who's benefiting. Most recently, the Arizona state legislature passed a measure in 2021 urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its flow. In the 20 years since he first had the idea, Million has suffered a string of regulatory and legal defeats at the hands of state and federal agencies, becoming a kind of bogeyman for conservationists in the process. Stories of similar projects often share the same ending, from proposals in Iowa and Minnesota to those between Canada and the United States. Experts we spoke with agreed the feat would be astronomical. Environmental writerMarc Reisner said the plan was one of "brutal magnificence" and "unprecedented destructiveness." Photos of snowfall around northern Arizona. Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. Developed in 1964 by engineer Ralph Parsons and his Pasadena-basedParsons Corporation,the plan would provide 75million acre-feet of water to arid areas inCanada, the United States and Mexico. We have to conserve water, butnota ridiculous wave parkthat willprobably go bankrupt? Heres how that affects Indigenous water rights, Salton Sea public health disaster gets a $250 million shot in the arm. The Western U.S. is experiencing its driest period in more than a thousand years, according to scientists from UCLA and Columbia University. The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state our community can better understand itself. Their technical report, which hasnt been peer-reviewed. But interest spans deeper than that. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. 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. Whereas I understand water rights, but globalwarming has introduced new priorities. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. The drought is so critical that this recent rainfall is a little like finding a $20 bill when youve lost your job and youre being evicted from your house, said Rhett Larson, an Arizona State University professor of water law. About 60 percent of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. I can't even imagine what it would all cost. The state should do everything possible to push conservation, but thats not going to cure the issue, he told Grist. Water thieves abound in dry California. "My son will never know what a six-gallon toilet looks like," she said. The resulting fresh water would bepiped northto the thirsty state. The Old River Control Structure, as it was dubbed, is also the linchpin of massive but delicate locks and pulsed flows that feed the largest bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands in the United States, outstripping thebetter-known Okefenokee Swamp that straddles Georgia and Florida. In China, the massiveSouth-to-North Water Diversion Projectis the largest such project ever undertaken. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. Do we have the political will? The two reasons: 1) the process of moving water that far, and that high, wouldn't make economic sense; 2) Great Lakes water is locked down politically. But, as water scarcity in the West gets more desperate, the hurdles could be overcome one day. 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. One benefit would be flood control for the Eastern USA . "The engineering is feasible. Let's be really clear here. The idea of diverting water from the Mississippi to the Colorado River basin is an excellent one, albeit also fantastically expensive. Weve had a few blizzards along the way, and some gun battles, but it is what it is.. In it, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Idaho Attorney General Ral Labrador contend that a new interpretation of a Clean Water Act rule is too vague, oversteps the bounds of federal authority and puts the liberties of states and private property owners at risk. A Mississippi pipeline to Lake Powell would need to cut across four states, he and Johnson said, including hundreds of miles of wetlands in Louisiana and west Texas. 00:00 00:00 An unknown error. You tellgolf courses how much water they can use, but one of thelargest wave basins in the world is acceptable? Viaderos team estimated that the sale of the water needed to fill the Colorado Rivers Lake Powell and Lake Mead the largest reservoirs in the country would cost more than $134 billion at a penny a gallon. Since about 1983, Lake Mead has dropped in volume from full capacity at. Specifically, start with a line from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River at Lake Powell, where a seven-state compact divvies up the water. Wildfire, flooding concerns after massive snowfall in Arizona, Customers will have to ask for water at Nevada restaurants if bill passes, Snow causes semi truck to crash into Arizona DPS Trooper SUV near Williams, A showdown over Colorado River water is setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle, In Arizona and other western states, pressure to count water lost to evaporation, While the much-needed water has improved conditions in the parched West, Arizona state legislature passed a measure in 2021, RELATED: Phoenix city officials celebrate final pipe installation in the Drought Pipeline Project, the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken within the Colorado River Basin. Stop letting excess water flow out to sea. Instead, California is focused on better managing the water we have, improving forecasting, and making our groundwater basins more sustainable.. About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. Those will require sacrifices, no doubt but not as many as building a giant pipeline would require, experts said. Theyre all such hypocrites. All it does is cause flooding and massive tax expenditures to repair and strengthen dikes, wrote Siefkes.New Orleans has a problem with that much water anyway, so lets divert 250,000 gallons/secondto Lake Powell, which currently has a shortage of 5.5 trillion gallons. As part of our commitment to sustainability, in 2021 Grist moved its office headquarters to the Bullitt Center in Seattles vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood. It would carry about 50,000 acre-feet of water per year, much less than the original pipeline plan but still twice Fort Collins current annual usage. "Sometimes there is a propensity in areas like Louisiana or the Southwest, where we've had such success in our engineering marvels, to engineer our way out of everything," Newman said. Letters to the Editor: Antigovernment ideology isnt working for snowed-in mountain towns, Letters to the Editor: Ignore Marjorie Taylor Greene? But interest spans deeper than that. Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesn't always have enough water to spare. The idea of a pipeline transecting the continent is not a new idea. Here in the scorching Coachella Valley, local governments have approved construction of four surf resorts for the very wealthy. Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, pitched a bold idea at a US Chamber of Commerce event last week: divert excess Mississippi River water to the west to irrigate crops to reduce pressure on the stressed Colorado River. The pipeline would provide the Colorado River basin with 600,000 acre-feet of water annually, which could serve roughly a million single-family homes. Other forms of augmentation, like desalination, are also gaining popularity on the national scene as possible options. She said extensive public education, aided by federal mandates and financial incentives, eventually led toa wholesale transition that saves millions of gallons of water. "To my mind, the overriding fatal flaw for large import schemes is the time required to become operational. 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. 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. But pipelines and other big ideaswill always attract interest, hydrology experts said, because they falsely promise an innovative, easy way out. The trooper inside suffered minor injuries. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST . People need to focus on their realistic solutions.. The project would have to secure dozens of state and federal permits and clear an enormous federal environmental review; moving the water would also require the construction of several hundred megawatts of power generation. All that snow in Arizona is nice now but officials worry that it could create disastrous flooding and wildfire conditions. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. The Arizona state legislature allocated seed money toward a study of a thousand-mile pipeline that would do exactly this last year, and the states top water official says hes spoken to officials in Kansas about participating in the project. 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. Opinion: How has American healthcare gone so wrong? The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); A nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Their detractors counter that, in an era of permanent aridification driven by climate change, the only sustainable solution is not to bring in more water, but to consume less of it. The memorial also suggests that the pipeline could be used as stormwater infrastructure to prevent regular flooding along the . CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. Most recently, the Arizona state legislature passed a measure in 2021 urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its flow. But there are tons of things that can be done but arent ever done.. The pipeline will end in the Rocky Mountain National park. The massive river, with tributaries from Montanato Ohio, is a national artery for shipping goodsout to sea. We are already in a severe drought. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. Each year worsens our receipt of rain and snow. "People are spoiled in the United States. 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. Still, he admits the road hasnt always been easy, and that victory is far from guaranteed. But the loss of so much water from the. "I don't think that drought, especially in the era of climate change, is something we can engineer our way out of.". Most recently, the Arizona state legislature passed a measure in 2021 urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its. Arizona's legislature allocated$1 billion in its last session for water augmentation projectslikea possible desalination plant, and state officials are in discussions with Mexican officials about the idea, saidBuschatzke. Facebook, Follow us on We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. Filling Lake Mead with Mississippi River Water No Longer a Pipe Dream. The Associated Press Climate team contributed images and page design. 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. To the editor: While theres no question that the receding waters of Lake Mead are having a detrimental effect on recreation and tourism, the real looming catastrophe is that if the water level of the nations largest reservoir continues to fall and hits a certain level, the hydroeclectic power plant at Hoover Dam will have to shut down. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. Would itbe expensive? "Nebraska wants to build a canal to pull water from the SouthPlatte River in Colorado, and downstream, Colorado wants to take water from the Missouri River and pull it back across Nebraska. Were not looking for the last dollar out of this project, he told me. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, prodded by members of Congressfrom western states, studied the massive proposal. 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.
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