The federal Water Conservation Bureau gave approval Tuesday to piping 440 billion gallons of water per month to Arizona. "Mexico has said it didn't although there has been a recent change ingovernment.". Could a water pipeline from the Mississippi River to Arizona be a real solution? 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. 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. China, unlike the US, is unencumbered by NEPA, water rights and democratic processes in general. Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun, and co-authors USA Today'sClimate Point newsletter. But water expertssaid it would likely take at least 30 years to clear legal hurdles to such a plan. We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. 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. 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. The driver of the truck was not injured. 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. Still, he admits the road hasnt always been easy, and that victory is far from guaranteed. He said hes open to one but doesnt think its necessary. If you dont have enough of it, go find more. 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. Pipeline | Definition, History, Types, Uses, & Facts | Britannica Arizona and Nevada residents must curb their use of water from the Colorado River, and California could be next. 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. Kaufman is the general manager of Leavenworth Water, which serves 50,000 people in a town that welcomed Lewis and Clark in 1804 during the duo's westward exploration. If this gets any traction at all, people in the flyover states of the Missouri River basin probably will scream, one water official told the New York Times when the project first received attention. The list of projects that run on similarly magical thinking goes on: Utah wants to build a pipeline of its own from Lake Powell to the fast-growing city of St. George, but Lake Powell has almost no water left. The bigger obstacles are fiscal, legal, environmentaland most of all, political. The trooper inside suffered minor injuries. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants,. 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. This aerial photo of Davenport, Iowa, shows Mississippi River floodwaters in May 2019. Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. "This sounds outlandish, but we have a massive problem," Paffrath said. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. YouTube. Water pipeline not feasible - Las Vegas Sun Newspaper My water, your water. Shipping Snow: Could Eastern Water Ease Western Drought? 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 plan to divert Mississippi flood waters to west is proposed 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 Western U.S. is experiencing its driest period in more than a thousand years, according to scientists from UCLA and Columbia University. Then take it out of the southern tip of the aquifer in Southern Colorado. "I started withtoilets, I was the toilet queen of L.A.," said Westford. Parsons said theplanwould replenishthe upper Missouri and Mississippi Rivers during dry spells, increase hydropower along the Columbia Riverand stabilize the Great Lakes. But pipelines and other big ideaswill always attract interest, hydrology experts said, because they falsely promise an innovative, easy way out. The Associated Press Climate team contributed images and page design. Drought-Stricken West Looks to Mississippi River to Solve Water Woes 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. Studies and modern-day engineering have proven that such projects are possible but would require decades of construction and billions of dollars. Here are some facts to put perspective to several of the. 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. Water Pipeline of America - Colorado-Mississippi Pipeline - Zamboanga To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. But interest spans deeper than that. In the meantime, researchers encourage more feasible and sustainable options, including better water conservation, water recycling, and less agricultural reliance. 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. The . Every year, NAWAPA would deliver 158 million acre-feet of water to the US, Canada, and Mexico more than 10 times the annual flow of the Colorado River. If officials approve this, the backlash willresult in everyone using as much water as wecare to. 2023 www.desertsun.com. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. Arizonas main active management areas are in Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties, leaving much of rural Arizona water use unregulated. That's a big pipe: Retired engineer suggests aqueduct from Mississippi But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. In China, the massiveSouth-to-North Water Diversion Projectis the largest such project ever undertaken. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. "We do not expect to see (carbon capture and storage) happen at a large scale unless we are able to address that pipeline issue," said Rajinder Sahota, deputy executive officer for climate change . The idea of a pipeline transecting the continent is not a new idea. 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. "Yes, a Superior-Green River pipeline seems unrealistic, even impossible at first glance," Huttner wrote for Minnesota Public Radio. But Westford and her colleague Brad Coffey, water resources manager,said desalination is needed in the Golden State. 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. It was the Bureau of Reclamation. About 60% of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. Were doing everything we can to minimize impacts, maximize benefits, and this project has a lot of benevolence associated with it. In his vision of the Wests future, urban growth will necessitate more big infrastructure projects like his. Million told Grist that hes secured partial funding for the project from multiple banks and the infrastructure company MasTec, but it remains unclear how much he would have to charge to make the project profitable. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. WATER WILL SOON be flowing from Lake Superior to the parched American Southwest. [1] Leading environmental engineering firm to study alternative water . What goes into the cat-and-mouse game of forecasting Colorados avalanche risks? 10/4/2021. Telling stories that matter in a dynamic, evolving state. As an engineer, I can guarantee you that it is doable, Viadero said. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. Do we have the political will? Weve had a few blizzards along the way, and some gun battles, but it is what it is.. "I think that societally, we want to be more flexible. Can A Pipeline Really Bring Drinking Water From Mississippi To The West? Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesnt always have enough water to spare. PROVISIONAL DATA SUBJECT TO REVISION. Instagram, Follow us on Water from these and other large rivers pour. In 1982,efforts were made to revive the plan by a Parsons company engineer, and the Lyndon Larouche movement supported itas recently as 2010. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. 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. All rights reserved. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. All rights reserved. Too wacky? Moving water from flood to drought - Phys.org 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. It would turn the Southwest into an oasis, and the Great Basin into productive farmland. Yet some smaller-scale projects have become reality. 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. All that snow in Arizona is nice now but officials worry that it could create disastrous flooding and wildfire conditions. Colorado River crisis: Can water be piped from Mississippi, Missouri? of Engineers has turned back official requests for more water from the Missouri River to alleviate shortages on the Mississippi. The Mississippi used to flow through a delta full of bayous, shifting sad bars, And islets. Whereas I understand water rights, but globalwarming has introduced new priorities. 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. 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. Noting about 4.5 million gallons per second of Mississippi River flow past the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana, the letter writer explains diverting 250,000 gallons per second would.