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. Still, its physically possible. Can Water Megaprojects Save The US Desert West? (Part 2) The total projected cost of the plan in 1975 was $100 billion or nearly $570billion in today's dollars,comparable to theInterstate Highway System. ", But desert defenders pushed back. 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. But interest spans deeper than that. 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. Despite the recent defeat of a major plant in Huntington Beach, after the California Coastal Commission said it was too environmentally damaging, "ocean desalination can't be off the table," said Coffey. Donate today tohelp keep Grists site and newsletters free. Why it's a longshot: First, to get across the Continental Divide and into the Colorado River, you'd need an uphill pipeline about 1,000 miles long, which is longer than any other drinking water . For instance, a Kansas groundwater management agency received a permit last year to truck 6,000 gallons of Missouri River water into Kansas and Colorado in hopes of recharging an aquifer. All rights reserved. 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. You should worry, Hidden, illegal casinos are booming in L.A., with organized crime reaping big profits, Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, Elliott: Kings use their heads over hearts in trading Jonathan Quick, This fabled orchid breeder loves to chat just not about Trader Joes orchids. Still, its physically possible. You couldbuild a pipeline from the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. But interest spans deeper than that. 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. We need to protect our water supply, at allcosts, and forgo our financialgains. About 60% of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. Booming Utah metro wants to pipe in water from Lake Powell so it can All that snow in Arizona is nice now but officials worry that it could create disastrous flooding and wildfire conditions. Arizona Legislators Want to Ship Mississippi River - Planetizen Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. (Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis, July 11). But interest spans deeper than that. Tribes in the Colorado River Basin are fighting for their water. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, prodded by members of Congressfrom western states, studied the massive proposal. The memorial also suggests that the pipeline could be used as stormwater infrastructure to prevent regular flooding along the . Parsons said theplanwould replenishthe upper Missouri and Mississippi Rivers during dry spells, increase hydropower along the Columbia Riverand stabilize the Great Lakes. Conservation alternatives are less palatable than big infrastructure projects, but theyre also more achievable. Can you solve drought by piping water across the country? - New York Times An earlier version of this story misidentified for which agency Jennifer Pitt was a technical adviser. Yes. 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. If we had a big pipeline from Lake Sakakawea, we wouldn't just dump it into Lake Powell. Hydrologic Unit Code 07110009. For decades, key stewards of the river have ignored the massive water loss, instead allocating Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico their share of the river without subtracting whats evaporated. About 60 percent of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. Even at its cheapest, the project would cost about twice as much per acre-foot of water delivered than other solutions like water conservation and reuse. That project, which also faces heavy headwinds from environmentalists, wouldcost an estimated $12 billion. My water, your water. Nonetheless, Siefkes trans-basin pipeline proposal went viral, receiving nearly half a million views. This is the country that built the Hoover Dam, and where Los Angeles suburbs were created by taking water from Owens Lake. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. He said wastewater reuse by area agencies has already swelled from 0.20% in the 1980sto 12% of regional water supply. This latest version would curve up through the Wyoming flatlands and back down to Fort Collins, a distance of around 340 miles. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where it's used for coastal restoration. No. Pumping Mississippi River water west: solution or pipe dream? California wants to build a $16 billion pipeline to draw water out of the Sacramento River Delta and down to the southern part of the state, but critics say the project would deprive Delta farmers of water and destroy local ecosystems. We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. Water Piped to Denver Could Ease Stress on River - The New York Times She said extensive public education, aided by federal mandates and financial incentives, eventually led toa wholesale transition that saves millions of gallons of water. "I started withtoilets, I was the toilet queen of L.A.," said Westford. By Brittney J. Miller, The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Latitude 3853'06", Longitude 9010'51" NAD27. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. Since about 1983, Lake Mead has dropped in volume from full capacity at. 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. The water, more than 44 million gallons a day, would come from 115 wells drilled between 1,000 and 5,000 feet deep in Beryl-Enterprise, a basin where the state has restricted use of shallow groundwater due to over-extraction. Such major infrastructure is an absolute necessity, said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, who said he represents the governor on all things Colorado River.. Famiglietti saidit's time for a national water policy, not to figure out where to lay down hundreds of pipesbut to look comprehensively at the intertwining of agriculture and the lion's share ofwater it uses. The state should do everything possible to push conservation, but thats not going to cure the issue, he told Grist. Title: USGS Surface-Water Daily Data for the Nation URL: https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv? 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. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Either way, most of these projects stand little chance of becoming reality theyre ideas from a bygone era, one that has more in common with the world of Chinatown than the parched west of the present. Sharing Mississippi River water with California would feed America 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. Theyre all such hypocrites. 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. Follow us on Today, any water pipeline could cost from $10 billion to $20 billion with another $30 billion in improvements just to get the water to thirsty people and farms. Diverting the Missouri River to the West: 'Can' Does Not - HuffPost And there are several approved diversions that draw water from the Great Lakes. Western Water Woes - Is Big Infrastructure the Way to Go? 2023 www.desertsun.com. "Mexico has said it didn't although there has been a recent change ingovernment.". 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. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. "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. 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. As the largest single contractor of the SWP and a major supporter of Southern California water conservation and recycling programs, Metropolitan seeks feasible alternatives to convey Colorado River Aqueduct supplies or Diamond Valley Lake storage from the eastern portion of its service area or purified water from Pure Water Southern California . Widespread interest in the plan eventually fizzled. A multi-state pipeline could easily require decades before it delivers a drop of water," said Michael Cohen, senior researcher with the Pacific Institute. Anyone who thinks we can drain the aquifer and survive is grossly misinformed. Senior citizens dont go to wave parks. 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. 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. 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. Others said the costs of an Arizona-Mexico desalination plant would also likely prove infeasible. A plan to divert Mississippi flood waters to west is proposed The pipeline would help it tap another 86,000 acre-feet of . Pipeline debate at center of California carbon capture plans 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. People need to focus on their realistic solutions.. You could do it.". 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. Filling Lake Mead with Mississippi River Water No Longer a Pipe Dream. Petition End Floods in America by Creating a Pipeline Network to States wish they wouldnt. He frames the pipeline as a complement to water-saving policies. In any case, Utah rejected a permit for the project in 2020, saying it would jeopardize the states own water rights. "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. You tellgolf courses how much water they can use, but one of thelargest wave basins in the world is acceptable? What goes into the cat-and-mouse game of forecasting Colorados avalanche risks? Studies and modern-day engineering have proven that such projects are possible but require decades of construction and billions of dollars. . Fueled by Google and other search engines, more than 3.2 millionpeople have read the letters, an unprecedented number for the regional publication's opinion content. Why hasn't the U.S. built an aqueduct or pipeline to divert - Quora Answer (1 of 21): Interbasin transfer is something we try to avoid. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. Gavin Newsom also touted desalination in adrought resilience plan he announcedlast week, though in brackish inland areas. If you dont have enough of it, go find more. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. 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. 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.
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