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Tribes in the Colorado River Basin are fighting for their water. You tellgolf courses how much water they can use, but one of thelargest wave basins in the world is acceptable? Yes, it would be hugely expensive. Hydrologic Unit Code 07110009. But water expertssaid it would likely take at least 30 years to clear legal hurdles to such a plan. YouTube star and Democratic political novice Kevin Paffrath proposed the Mississippi River pipeline last week during a debate among candidates seeking to replace Gov. A drive up Interstate 5 shows how muchland has been fallowed due tolack of water. 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. Other forms of augmentation, like desalination, are also gaining popularity on the national scene as possible options. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. 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. We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. 00:00 00:00 An unknown error. 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. One benefit would be flood control for the Eastern USA . 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. 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. That project, which also faces heavy headwinds from environmentalists, wouldcost an estimated $12 billion. In 1982,efforts were made to revive the plan by a Parsons company engineer, and the Lyndon Larouche movement supported itas recently as 2010. She can be reached at jwilson@gannett.com or @janetwilson66 on Twitter. Filling Lake Mead with Mississippi River Water No Longer a Pipe Dream. 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. 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. He said hes open to one but doesnt think its necessary. 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. She and others worked to persuade reluctant consumers, builders and policymakers to ditchwidely usedsix-gallon flush toilets in favor of perfectly effective two-gallon versions. Each year . Just pump water a few miles from the Mississippi near Des Moines into the Ogallala aquifer. An in-depth feasibility study specifically on pumping Mississippi River water to the West hasnt been conducted yet to Larsons knowledge. Los Angeles-area water districts have implemented much of what Famiglietti mentioned. Who is going to come to the desert and use it? California uses 34 million acre-feet of water per year for agriculture. Drought looms over midterm elections in the arid West, From lab to market, bio-based products are gaining momentum, The hazards of gas stoves were flagged by the industry and hidden 50 years ago, How Alaskas coastal communities are racing against erosion, Construction begins on controversial lithium mine in Nevada. USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. Stop letting excess water flow out to sea. According to DPS, the driver of the semi-truck lost control of the truck on the icy I-40 freeway near Williams, striking a DPS patrol car parked by the side of the highway. Heres how that affects Indigenous water rights, Salton Sea public health disaster gets a $250 million shot in the arm. 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. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where it's used for coastal restoration. About 60 percent of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. I find it interesting that households have to watch how much water theyare usingfor washing clothes, wateringlawns, washing cars,etc. 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 . Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. Yet some smaller-scale projects have become reality. 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. The pipeline would help it tap another 86,000 acre-feet of . Experts we spoke with agreed the feat would be astronomical. after the growth in California . 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. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. These realities havent stopped the Wests would-be water barons from dreaming. What goes into the cat-and-mouse game of forecasting Colorados avalanche risks? If you dont have enough of it, go find more. 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. If we had a big pipeline from Lake Sakakawea, we wouldn't just dump it into Lake Powell. To the editor: With the threat of brownouts and over-stressed power grids, dwindling water resources in California and the call to reduce consumption by 15%, I want to point out we are not all in this together. But interest spans deeper than that. 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. To be talking about pipe dreams, when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. 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.. A pipeline taking water from the Missouri River west makes perfect sense, if you don't care about money, energy, or the environment. The pipeline will end in the Rocky Mountain National park. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis. Grab hydrogen and oxygen from the air and make artificialrain. 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. 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. Take that, Lake Mead. A multi-state pipeline could easily require decades before it delivers a drop of water," said Michael Cohen, senior researcher with the Pacific Institute. Instead, California is focused on better managing the water we have, improving forecasting, and making our groundwater basins more sustainable.. Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. 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. The elephant in the room, according to Fort, is agriculture, which accounts for more than 80 percent of water withdrawals from the Colorado River. Donate today tohelp keep Grists site and newsletters free. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. Pipelines usually consist of sections of pipe made of . Asked what might be the requirements and constraints of a pipeline from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Gene Pawliksaid, Since (the Army Corps) has not done a formal study related to the use of pipelines to move water between watersheds, we cannot speculate on the details or cost of such projects.. 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. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. We've had relatively rich resources for so long,we've never really had to deal withthis before, andwe don't want to change.". And there are several approved diversions that draw water from the Great Lakes. It is a minimum of 1,067 miles from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River if it could be built in a fairly straight line (St. Louis to Grand Junction, Colorado, based on the route of. "My son will never know what a six-gallon toilet looks like," she said. PROVISIONAL DATA SUBJECT TO REVISION. Flooding along the Mississippi River basin appears to have become more frequent in recent years, as has the [] 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. 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. 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. Improved simulations of streamflow and base flow for selected sites within and adjacent to the Mississippi River Alluvial Plain area are important for modeling groundwater flow because surface-water flows have a substantial effect on groundwater levels. Steps are being taken to address water issues in Buckeye. Senior citizens dont go to wave parks. "People are spoiled in the United States. 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. Theyre all such hypocrites. If a portion of the farmers in the region were to change crops or fallow their fields, the freed-up water could sustain growing cities. Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesnt always have enough water to spare. and Renstrom says that unless Utah builds a long-promised pipeline to pump water 140 miles from Lake . "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 . But the loss of so much water from the. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. Rescue the oceans from the pollution that flood waters pick up and dump into the ocean, creating dead zones. Many sawSiefkes' idea and others like it as sheer theft by a region that needs to fix its own woes. 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. 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. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. 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. 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. 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. 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. Reader support helps sustain our work. 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. 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. Seeking answers,The Desert Sun consultedwater experts, conservation groups and government officials for their assessments. There are no easy fixes to a West that has grown and has allocated all of its water theres no silver bullet, she said. This would take 254 days to fill.. The Colorado River is drying up. Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. For as long as this idea has been proposed. On the heels of Arizonas 2021 push for a pipeline feasibility study, former Arizona Gov. Water use has gone down 40% per capita in recent years, said Coffey. 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. Experts say theres a proverbial snowballs chance in August of most of theseschemes being implemented. Moreover, we need water in our dams for. 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. The snowbirds commonly stay here for at least six months. I can't even imagine what it would all cost. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. Why not begin a grand national infrastructure project of building a water pipeline from those flooded states to the Southwest? 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. Million sued, and he says he expects a ruling this year. But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.. Every day, we hear about water conservation, restrictions. Most recently, in 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation produced a report laying out a potentially grim future for the Colorado River, and had experts evaluate 14 big ideas commonly touted as potential solutions. 2023 www.desertsun.com. 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. 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. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where its used for coastal restoration. Nonetheless, Siefkes trans-basin pipeline proposal went viral, receiving nearly half a million views. 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. Stories of similar projects often share the same ending, from proposals in Iowa and Minnesota to those between Canada and the United States. Martinez, an engineer who oversaw the construction of pipelines in the Sierra Nevada for Southern California Edison, agrees a 1,500-mile pipeline from the Mississippicould physically be built. 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?" He said hes open to one but doesnt think its necessary. Twitter, Follow us on The massive river, with tributaries from Montanato Ohio, is a national artery for shipping goodsout to sea. This is the country that built the Hoover Dam, and where Los Angeles suburbs were created by taking water from Owens Lake. Each state along the Colorado River basin had the rights to a certain quantity of river water, divided among major users like farms and cities, and the projects were designed to help the states realize those abstract rights. The mountains are green now but that could be harmful during wildfire season. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST . It's the lowest level since the lake was filled in the. About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. I have dystopian nightmares aboutpipelines marching across the landscape, saidglobal water scarcity expert Jay Famiglietti. Clouds of birds hundreds of species live in or travel through Louisianas rich Atchafalaya forests each year, said National Audubon Society Delta Conservation Director Erik Johnson. But interest spans deeper than that. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Absolutely not," said Meena Westford, executive director of Colorado River resource policy for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Arizonas main active management areas are in Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, and Santa Cruz counties, leaving much of rural Arizona water use unregulated. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. It was the Bureau of Reclamation. The water pipelines from the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa connecting to the headwaters of the Colorado River at the Rocky Mountain National Park. continue to approve surf waveparks and "beachfront" developments in the desert, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. You couldbuild a pipeline from the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. "I'm an optimist," said Coffey, who said local conservation is key. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. Plus, the federal report found the water would be of much lower quality than other western water sources. Each year worsens our receipt of rain and snow. But, as water scarcity in the West gets more desperate, the hurdles could be overcome one day. It would turn the Southwest into an oasis, and the Great Basin into productive farmland. 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. 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. Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com 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. In any case, Utah rejected a permit for the project in 2020, saying it would jeopardize the states own water rights. "I think that societally, we want to be more flexible. 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. 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. People need to focus on their realistic solutions.. "To my mind, the overriding fatal flaw for large import schemes is the time required to become operational. . The idea of a pipeline transecting the continent is not a new idea. But if areas like the Coachella Valley continue to approve surf waveparks and "beachfront" developments in the desert, "we're screwed," he said bluntly. 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.. 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. Still, its physically possible. It boggles the mind. [1] Don't bother sending notices on conservation; they willbe ignored. 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, a professor of water law at Arizona State University. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. He raised the possibility that policymakers will seek to build a 900-mile pipeline from Lake Superior to the Green River watershed in southwest Wyoming. 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 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 have to conserve water, butnota ridiculous wave parkthat willprobably go bankrupt? 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. It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.. Vessels ran aground and had to navigate very carefully. Title: USGS Surface-Water Daily Data for the Nation URL: https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv? 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. Arizona is among six states, that released a letter and a proposed model for how much Colorado River water they could potentially cut to stave off a collapse. Available data for this site Madison County, Illinois. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson), Lawmakers targeting hospital facility fees, Whats Working: How a Denver nonprofit is expanding the benefits of work. Not mentioned was the great grand-daddy of all schemes for re-allocating water, known as the North American Water and Power Authority Plan. Facebook, Follow us on 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. Pipeline sizes vary from the 2-inch- (5-centimetre-) diameter lines used in oil-well gathering systems to lines 30 feet (9 metres) across in high-volume water and sewage networks. In their technical report, which hasnt been peer-reviewed, they 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. At comment sessions on Colorado's plan, he said, long-distance pipelines wereconstantly suggested by the public. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. Paffrath proposed building a pipeline from the Mississippi River to bring water to drought-stricken California. And biologists andenvironmental attorneys saidNew Orleans and the Louisiana coast, along with the interior swamplands, need every drop of muddy Mississippi water. 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. (Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis, July 11). California Gov. More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? 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 one, theres no longer enough unclaimed water to make most pipeline projects cost-effective. after the growth in California . The actual costs to build such a pipeline today would likely be orders of magnitude higher, thanks to inflation and inevitable construction snags.