To the editor: I'd like to ask if the reader from Chatsworth calling for the construction of a water pipeline from the Mississippi River to Colorado River reservoirs has ever been to . Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants,. And biologists andenvironmental attorneys saidNew Orleans and the Louisiana coast, along with the interior swamplands, need every drop of muddy Mississippi water. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. While the much-needed water has improved conditions in the parched West, experts warn against claiming victory. My state, your state. This One thousand mile long pipeline could move water from the Eastern USA (Great Lakes, Ohio River, Missouri River, and Mississippi River) to the Colorado River via the Mississippi River. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. A drive up Interstate 5 shows how muchland has been fallowed due tolack of water. Similar ideas have been suggested about Great Lakes water. "I don't think that drought, especially in the era of climate change, is something we can engineer our way out of.". Conservation alternatives are less palatable than big infrastructure projects, but theyre also more achievable. 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. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where it's used for coastal restoration. Trans-national pipelines would also impact ecological resources. "I started withtoilets, I was the toilet queen of L.A.," said Westford. Lake Mead is at its lowest level since it was filled 85 years ago. But interest spans deeper than that. In any case, Utah rejected a permit for the project in 2020, saying it would jeopardize the states own water rights. Moreover, we need water in our dams for. 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 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. 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. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST A recent edition of The Desert Sun had twoletters objectingto piping water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River, and on to California. Any water diversion from the Mississippi to Arizona must be pumped about 6,000 feet up, over the Rockies. She can be reached at jwilson@gannett.com or @janetwilson66 on Twitter. The California water wars of the early twentieth century are summed up in a famous line from the 1974 film Chinatown: Either you bring the water to L.A., or you bring L.A. to the water. Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since the events the film dramatizes, but much of the West still approaches water the same way. 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. Makes me wonder how this got this far, whose interests are being served and who's benefiting. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. Politics are an even bigger obstacle for making multi-state pipelines a reality. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST . 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. Million himself, though, is confident that his pipeline will get built, and that it will ensure Fort Collins future. Experts say those will require sacrifices but not as many as building a giant pipeline would require. Here in the scorching Coachella Valley, local governments have approved construction of four surf resorts for the very wealthy. 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. Power from its hydroelectric dams would boost U.S. electricity supplies. Los Angeles-area water districts have implemented much of what Famiglietti mentioned. 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. Letters to the Editor: Antigovernment ideology isnt working for snowed-in mountain towns, Letters to the Editor: Ignore Marjorie Taylor Greene? 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. What states in the Southwest have failed to do is curtail growth and agriculture that is, of course, water-driven. There are no easy fixes to a West that has grown and has allocated all of its water theres no silver bullet, she said. 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. 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. The project would require more than 300 new dams,canals, pipelines, tunnels, and pumping stations, bans large waterexportsoutside of the area. 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. We are already in a severe drought. The idea of diverting water from the Mississippi to the Colorado River basin is an excellent one, albeit also fantastically expensive. 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. But interest spans deeper than that. 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? USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. Siphon off a big portion, and youd be swapping oneecological catastrophe for another, said Audubons Johnson. As part of our commitment to sustainability, in 2021 Grist moved its office headquarters to the Bullitt Center in Seattles vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood. But pipelines and other big ideaswill always attract interest, hydrology experts said, because they falsely promise an innovative, easy way out. 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. Opinion: California gave up on mandating COVID vaccines for schoolchildren. We want to have more sustainable infrastructure. Meanwhile, watershed states in the U.S., and even counties havetaken actionto preventsuch schemes. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. States wish they wouldnt. Above, the droughts effects can be seen at a marina on June 29. . Infrastructure is one of the few ways well turn things around to assure that theres some supply.. But it's doable. But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.. "I think that societally, we want to be more flexible. About 60 percent of the region remains in some form of drought, continuing a decades-long spiral into water scarcity. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. 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. 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. 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. To be talking about pipe dreams, when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. 00:00 00:00 An unknown error. The pipeline will end in the Rocky Mountain National park. She said extensive public education, aided by federal mandates and financial incentives, eventually led toa wholesale transition that saves millions of gallons of water. 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. 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 . Follow us on 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. Absolutely. But Westford and her colleague Brad Coffey, water resources manager,said desalination is needed in the Golden State. Gavin Newsom if he's. The 800-mile system of pipelines, ditches and reservoirs would cost an estimated $23 billion and could provide 1 million acre-feet of water a year to Colorado. On the heels of Arizonas 2021 push for a pipeline feasibility study, former Arizona Gov. 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 plan would divert water from the Missouri River which normally flows into the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico through an enormous pipeline slicing some 600 miles (970 . 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. On Tuesday, the Scottsdale City Council agreed on a proposal to treat water and deliver it to the community for three years. "Should we move the water to where the food is grown, or is it maybe time to think about moving the food production to the water?" The distance between Albuquerque, for example, and the Mississippi River perhaps the closest hypothetical starting point for such a pipeline is about 1,000 miles, crossing at least three. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. Buying land to secure water rights would cost a chunk of cash, too, which leads to an even larger obstacle for such proposals: the legal and political hoops. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. 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. 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. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis. 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. Physically, some could be achieved. Those will require sacrifices, no doubt but not as many as building a giant pipeline would require, experts said. Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesn't always have enough water to spare. The driver of the truck was not injured. . No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Millions in the Southwest will literally be left in the dark and blistering heat when theres no longer enough water behind the dam to power the giant electricity-producing turbines. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. 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. This latest version would curve up through the Wyoming flatlands and back down to Fort Collins, a distance of around 340 miles. All rights reserved. A multi-state pipeline could easily require decades before it delivers a drop of water," said Michael Cohen, senior researcher with the Pacific Institute. The idea of drinking even heavily treated liquid wastemay seem unpalatable, but Westfordthinks people will adapt. and Renstrom says that unless Utah builds a long-promised pipeline to pump water 140 miles from Lake . 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. Environmental writerMarc Reisner said the plan was one of "brutal magnificence" and "unprecedented destructiveness." 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. California uses 34 million acre-feet of water per year for agriculture. The diverted flow would require massive water tunnels, since a flow of 250,000. 1999-2023 Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure dont need all that water. From winter lettuce in grocery stores to the golf courses of the Sun Belt, the Wests explosive growth over the past century rests on aqueducts, canals and drainage systems. Pitt, who was a technical adviser on Reclamation's2012 report,decried ceaselesspipeline proposals. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Why not begin a grand national infrastructure project of building a water pipeline from those flooded states to the Southwest? Theyre all such hypocrites. The idea's been dismissed for as long as it's. 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. To be talking about pipe dreams when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. I have dystopian nightmares aboutpipelines marching across the landscape, saidglobal water scarcity expert Jay Famiglietti. The river's web, if some have their way, could become even larger. Let's be really clear here. Flooding along the Mississippi River basin appears to have become more frequent in recent years, as has the [] 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.. Title: USGS Surface-Water Daily Data for the Nation URL: https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv? Filling Lake Mead with Mississippi River Water No Longer a Pipe Dream. Last updated on: February 10, 2023, 10:54h. Thats not to mention the housing development again, for the very wealthy with its own lagoon. 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). Arizona and Nevada residents must curb their use of water from the Colorado River, and California could be next. He said hes open to one but doesnt think its necessary. Widespread interest in the plan eventually fizzled. 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. The massive river, with tributaries from Montanato Ohio, is a national artery for shipping goodsout to sea. My water, your water. WATER WILL SOON be flowing from Lake Superior to the parched American Southwest. 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. Here's How. The Arizona Legislature wants the federal government to study the feasibility of constructing a pipeline . 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. 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. YouTube star and Democratic political novice Kevin Paffrath proposed the Mississippi River pipeline last week during a debate among candidates seeking to replace Gov. Million sued, and he says he expects a ruling this year. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. continue to approve surf waveparks and "beachfront" developments in the desert, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. 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. 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. But the idea hasnever completely died. The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. The federal Water Conservation Bureau gave approval Tuesday to piping 440 billion gallons of water per month to Arizona. YouTube. Paffrath proposed building a pipeline from the Mississippi River to bring water to drought-stricken California. 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.. Senior citizens dont go to wave parks. 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. 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. John Kaufman, the man who proposed the Missouri River pipeline, wants to see the artificial boundaries expand. The snowbirds commonly stay here for at least six months. John Neely ofPalm Desert responded: "All of these river cities who refuse to give us their water can stop snowbirding to the desert to use our water. The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. 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. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. The water pipelines from the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa connecting to the headwaters of the Colorado River at the Rocky Mountain National Park. The water would be drained via a 36 inch pipe already installed four miles west of Sugarloaf Mountain outside Marquette. The pipeline would help it tap another 86,000 acre-feet of . 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. Its largestdam would be 1,700 feet tall, more than twice the height of Hoover Dam. 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. Politics are an even bigger obstacle to making multi-state pipelines a reality. [1] Reader support helps sustain our work. 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. 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. Imagine a Five foot diameter, half burried pipeline covered with photovoltaic cells on the upper half. 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. About 33% of vegetables and 66% of fruits and nuts are produced in California for consumption for the nation. Posted on: February 7, 2023, 02:30h. Then take it out of the southern tip of the aquifer in Southern Colorado. The idea of diverting water from the Mississippi to the Colorado River basin is an excellent one, albeit also fantastically expensive. . 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. 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. General Manager Henry Martinez also warned that cutting water to Imperial Valley farmers and nearby Yuma County, Arizona, could lead to a food crisis as well as a water crisis. All that snow in Arizona is nice now but officials worry that it could create disastrous flooding and wildfire conditions. 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. USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. "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 . On the heels of Arizonas 2021 push for a pipeline feasibility study, former Arizona Gov. "People are spoiled in the United States. 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. In 1982,efforts were made to revive the plan by a Parsons company engineer, and the Lyndon Larouche movement supported itas recently as 2010. So what are the solutions to the arid West's dilemma, as climate change heats up and California's State Water Project, along with Lake Mead and Lake Powell, shrivels due to reduced snowmelt and rainfall? "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. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. 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 2012 study didn't discount either option but. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. One method for simulating streamflow and base flow, random forest (RF) models, was developed from the data at gaged sites and, in turn, was . 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.
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