"To my mind, the overriding fatal flaw for large import schemes is the time required to become operational. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where it's used for coastal restoration. Don't bother sending notices on conservation; they willbe ignored. Safety concerns increased in 2020 after a pipeline in Mississippi ruptured in a landslide, releasing a heavier-than-air plume of carbon dioxide that displaced oxygen near the ground. The pipeline would help it tap another 86,000 acre-feet of . Their technical report, which hasnt been peer-reviewed. Instead, California is focused on better managing the water we have, improving forecasting, and making our groundwater basins more sustainable.. Others said the costs of an Arizona-Mexico desalination plant would also likely prove infeasible. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants,. What goes into the cat-and-mouse game of forecasting Colorados avalanche risks? Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. Dothey pay extra for using our water? Heproposed usingnuclear explosionsto excavate the system's trenches and underground water storage reservoirs. A federal report from a decade ago pegged an optimistic cost estimate for a similar pipeline at $14 billion and said the project would take 30 years to build; a Colorado rancher who championed the idea around the same time, meanwhile, estimated its costs at $23 billion. The Western U.S. is experiencing its driest period in more than a thousand years, according to scientists from UCLA and Columbia University. 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. 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. 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. 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. This would take 254 days to fill.. Then take it out of the southern tip of the aquifer in Southern Colorado. By the way, none of this includes the incredible carbon footprints about to be stomped on the environment. A Kansas groundwater management agency, for instance, received a permit last year to truck 6,000 gallons of Missouri River water into Kansas and Colorado in hopes of recharging an aquifer. The lawsuit, originally filed in southern Texas' federal courts Jan. 18, was amended to include Idaho on Monday. But interest spans deeper than that. 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. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? Trans-national pipelines would also impact ecological resources. The federal Water Conservation Bureau gave approval Tuesday to piping 440 billion gallons of water per month to Arizona. At comment sessions on Colorado's plan, he said, long-distance pipelines wereconstantly suggested by the public. A drive up Interstate 5 shows how muchland has been fallowed due tolack of water. And biologists andenvironmental attorneys saidNew Orleans and the Louisiana coast, along with the interior swamplands, need every drop of muddy Mississippi water. Water from these and other large rivers pour. Those will require sacrifices, no doubt but not as many as building a giant pipeline would require, experts said. The Colorado River is drying up. We have to conserve water, butnota ridiculous wave parkthat willprobably go bankrupt? We have already introduced invasive species all over the continentzebra mussels, quagga mussels, grass carp, spiny water flea, lampreys, ru. But grand ideas for guaranteeing water for the arid Westhave beenfloated for decades. 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. The state should do everything possible to push conservation, but thats not going to cure the issue, he told Grist. The state also set aside funds in 2018 to study possible imports from the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers, but to date, the study hasnt been done, he said. Stop letting excess water flow out to sea. 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. Letter writers have asked why a water pipeline is not constructed from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River. Arizonas main active management areas are in Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties, leaving much of rural Arizona water use unregulated. 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. The driver of the truck was not injured. 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. He frames the pipeline as a complement to water-saving policies. The Arizona Legislature wants the federal government to study the feasibility of constructing a pipeline . You tellgolf courses how much water they can use, but one of thelargest wave basins in the world is acceptable? 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. 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. The hypothetical Mississippi River pipeline, which gained new life last year amid devastating drought conditions, is a case in point. 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. 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. 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. Why not begin a grand national infrastructure project of building a water pipeline from those flooded states to the Southwest? The delta was tricky for barge traffic and shipping to navigate. The pipeline will end in the Rocky Mountain National park. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. In the meantime, researchers encourage more feasible and sustainable options, including better water conservation, water recycling, and less agricultural reliance. You couldbuild a pipeline from the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. 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. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. Anyone who thinks we can drain the aquifer and survive is grossly misinformed. About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. 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. No. A pipeline taking water from the Missouri River west makes perfect sense, if you don't care about money, energy, or the environment. Politics are an even bigger obstacle to making multi-state pipelines a reality. Physically, some could be achieved. 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. Last updated on: February 10, 2023, 10:54h. It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.. Conservation alternatives are less palatable than big infrastructure projects, but theyre also more achievable. Other legal constraints include the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Protection Act and variousstate environmental laws, said Brent Newman, senior policy director for the National Audubon Society's Delta state programs. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com So come on out for the plastic Marilyn on our dashboard, and stay for the stupendous waste of water, electricity and clean air. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. States have [historically] been very successful in getting the federal government to pay for wasteful, unsustainable, large water projects, said Denise Fort, a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico who has studied water infrastructure. Almost two decades ago, when Million was working on a masters thesis, he happened upon a map that showed the Green River making a brief detour into Colorado on its way through Utah. The elephant in the room, according to Fort, is agriculture, which accounts for more than 80 percent of water withdrawals from the Colorado River. Still, its physically possible. Engineers said the pipelineidea is technically feasible. Studies and modern-day engineering have proven that such projects are possible but would require decades of construction and billions of dollars. The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. All rights reserved. "The engineering is feasible. Gavin Newsom if he's. States wish they wouldnt. Widespread interest in the plan eventually fizzled. Last time I heard, we are still the United States of America.". Coffey said the project isn't really a pipeline, but more "a bypass for an aging 60-year-old"system. In China, the massiveSouth-to-North Water Diversion Projectis the largest such project ever undertaken. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Their technical report, which hasnt been peer-reviewed, calculated that a pipe for moving this scale of water would need to be 88 feet in diameter around twice the length of a semi-trailer or a 100-foot-wide channel thats 61 feet deep. The resulting fresh water would bepiped northto the thirsty state. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST 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. 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. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. Arizona lawmakers want to build a pipeline from the Mississippi River more than a thousand miles away, a Colorado rancher wants to pipe water 300 miles across the Rockies, and Utah wants to pump even more water out of the already-depleted Lake Powell. At one point, activists who opposed the project erected three large billboards warning about the high cost and potential consequences, such as the possibility that drawing down the Green River could harm the rivers fish populations. The 2012 study didn't discount either option but. 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. "I don't think that drought, especially in the era of climate change, is something we can engineer our way out of.". and planned for completion in 2050, it willdivert 44.8 billion cubic metersof water annually to major cities and agricultural and industrial centers in the parchednorth. Savor that while your lawns are dying. Whereas I understand water rights, but globalwarming has introduced new priorities. Would itbe expensive? (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson), Lawmakers targeting hospital facility fees, Whats Working: How a Denver nonprofit is expanding the benefits of work. Nonetheless, Siefkes trans-basin pipeline proposal went viral, receiving nearly half a million views. Instagram, Follow us on Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesnt always have enough water to spare. John Kaufman, the man who proposed the Missouri River pipeline, wants to see the artificial boundaries expand. Haul icebergs from the Arctic to a new southern California port. Flooding along the Mississippi River basin appears to have become more frequent in recent years, as has the [] As politicians across the West confront the consequences of the climate-fueled Millennium Drought, many of them are heeding the words of Chinatown and trying to bring in outside water through massive capital projects. We need to protect our water supply, at allcosts, and forgo our financialgains. "People are spoiled in the United States. 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. 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 . 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. If you dont have enough of it, go find more. Famiglietti also said while oil companies are willing to spend millions because their product yields high profits per gallon, that's not the case with water, typically considered a public resource. 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. Well, kind of, Letters to the Editor: Shasta County dumps Dominion voting machines at its own peril, Editorial: Bay Area making climate change history by phasing out sales of gas furnaces and water heaters, Column: Mike Lindell is helping a California county dump voting machines. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), FILE - Dredge Jadwin, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging vessel, powers south down the Mississippi River Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022, past Commerce, Mo. 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. 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? . Gavin Newsom also touted desalination in adrought resilience plan he announcedlast week, though in brackish inland areas. Yes, it would be hugely expensive. Ultimately the rising environmental movement squelched it the project woulddestroyvast wildlife habitats in Canada and the American West,submergewild rivers in Idaho and Montana,and requirethe relocation of hundreds of thousands of people. One method for simulating streamflow and base flow, random forest (RF) models, was developed from the data at gaged sites and, in turn, was . USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. Other forms of augmentation, like desalination, are also gaining popularity on the national scene as possible options. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Another businessman in New Mexico has pushed plans to pump river water 150 miles to the city of Santa Fe, but that water would have to be pumped uphill. Title: USGS Surface-Water Daily Data for the Nation URL: https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv? No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Absolutely. Could a water pipeline from the Mississippi River to Arizona be a real solution? In 1964, a California engineering company proposed diverting flows from the Yukon and Mackenzie River watersheds, shared by Canada and the U.S., all the way to southern California and into Mexico. What states in the Southwest have failed to do is curtail growth and agriculture that is, of course, water-driven. The bigger obstacles are fiscal, legal, environmentaland most of all, political. Latitude 3853'06", Longitude 9010'51" NAD27. The mountains are green now but that could be harmful during wildfire season. A 45-mile, $16 billion tunnel that would mark California's largest water project in nearly 50 years took a step closer to reality this week, with Gov. 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. . 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. The project would require more than 300 new dams,canals, pipelines, tunnels, and pumping stations. 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. 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. People fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta's Elk Slough near Courtland, California, on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. The Colorado River's 1922 compact allocated about 23% of the Upper Basin's water to Utah, and the state uses about 72% of that water. . Talk about a job-creating infrastructure project, which would rivalthe tremendous civilengineering feats our country used to be noted for. Grist is powered by WordPress VIP. 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?" The project entails the construction of thousands of miles of pipelines and canals, 427 water treatment facilities, countless pumping facilities, and the displacement of 300,000 residents. Officials imposed the state's first-ever water restrictions on cities and towns, and California farmers are drilling deeper and . If we had a big pipeline from Lake Sakakawea, we wouldn't just dump it into Lake Powell. Million himself, though, is confident that his pipeline will get built, and that it will ensure Fort Collins future. 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. Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. All rights reserved. WATER WILL SOON be flowing from Lake Superior to the parched American Southwest. 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. Tina Peters convicted of government obstruction charge, acquitted of obstructing a police officer, (720) 263-2338 Call, text, Signal or WhatsApp, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Arizona, for instance, has invested millions of dollars in wastewater recycling while other communities have paid to fix leaky pipes, making their water delivery systems more efficient. 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. But if areas like the Coachella Valley continue to approve surf waveparks and "beachfront" developments in the desert, "we're screwed," he said bluntly. 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. Here in the scorching Coachella Valley, local governments have approved construction of four surf resorts for the very wealthy. A man from Minnesota wrote to the Palm Springs Desert Sun earlier this month and expressed similar sentiments, warning, If California comes for Midwest water, we have plenty of dynamite.. 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. It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.. The idea of a pipeline transecting the continent is not a new idea. And several approved diversions draw water from the Great Lakes. 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. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. On Tuesday, the Scottsdale City Council agreed on a proposal to treat water and deliver it to the community for three years. 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. Famiglietti said as long as urban areas in the West don't persist in untrammeled growth, they have enough supply for the immediate future, with the ability to rip out lawns, capture stormwater runoff in local reservoirs, do municipal audits to fix leaks and other tools. [1] "Yes, a Superior-Green River pipeline seems unrealistic, even impossible at first glance," Huttner wrote for Minnesota Public Radio. 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. Power from its hydroelectric dams would boost U.S. electricity supplies. Hydrologic Unit Code 07110009. The trooper inside suffered minor injuries. Yahoo, Reddit and ceaseless headlines about a 22-year megadrought and killer flash floods, not to mention dead bodies showing up on Lake Meads newly exposed shoreline, have galvanized reader interest this summer. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. 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. 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. Here are some facts to put perspective to several of the. The largest eastern river, the Mississippi, has about 30 times the average annual flow of the Colorado, and the Columbia has close to 10 times. 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. Theyre all such hypocrites. To the editor: The states near the Gulf of Mexico are often flooded with too much water, while the Southwest is suffering a long-term drought. 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. 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. 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. 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. Siphon off a big portion, and youd be swapping oneecological catastrophe for another, said Audubons Johnson. 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.