Posted on 07/15/2014 8:34:33 AM PDT by topher
This might be some background reading on this:
FoxNews: California expected to set mandatory water curbs for first time
Over one hundred years ago, folks in California were planning their future by planning on aquaducts.
Occasionally, Louisiana has too much water (flooding) and Texas too little.
The key number in all of this is that Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas is at about 400-500 feet above sea level.
That means an aquaduct system could be built such there could be four to five stations that raise the water 100 feet or more.
Louisiana has a number of river systems (besides the Mississippi River) that run near the Gulf Coast -- Calcasieu, Vermilion, Teche, and so on, and so on.
Then there is the Bonne Carre Spillway which is meant to divert water from flooding Baton Rouge and New Orleans so that if necessary Morgan City gets flooded out (folks in Morgan City are not found of this).
Along this Louisiana/Texas aquaduct could be jogging/bike/hiking trails and even water parks (swimming only, no boating).
If one makes the aquaduct wide enough (100 feet by 40 feet deep), then it could deliver millions of acre feet of water a year. However, someone would have to do the Math on that.
Dallas/Fort Worth (and other cities such as Wichita Falls) have reservoirs/lakes. They just don't have any water.
California is in a bind because over a hundred years ago their water system was based on some very good snow fall years on the Sierra Mountains. Now they are facing a deficit in snowfall.
A good tropical storm or even a good summer rain system might dump 10 inches of rain on Southern Louisiana.
What is needed is that there needs to be a system to catch the rain, and send it to a place where it is needed.
Once this done, and Texas has an abundance of water and builds even more reservoirs, then it might possible to go further North (Oklahoma/Kansas) or West (Western Texas/New Mexico).
This might be pie-in-the-sky type of talk, but Texas might need water for their energy industry, and the dollars Louisiana/Texas generates from energy (oil/natural gas) might be used for in getting water to some thirsty areas of Texas FROM Louisiana.
Of course, Texas could send some pocket change to Louisiana annually...
The problem is high density city growth vs. low density rural growth. If unbalanced, Texas will go Democrat, and with it the whole country. You can look at any population density map and match it pretty closely to who voted Democrat: all the areas with a population density greater than 1,000 people per square mile.
Water transportation is a key technology required for high density cities to exist. If Texas limits an area to just the water God provides naturally, it will stay God's country.
Texas not bad. North Dakota, the boom continues.
The Ogallala provides a lot of water for irrigation in the Texas panhandle as far south as Midland. Texas considered the problems with the falling level and how that would affect the Texas ag economy.
In 1988 Texas did a feasibility on pumping water from the mouth of the Miss river via pipeline up to Possum Kingdom lake. From there, the Brazos river channel would be re-engineered so that the water would reach Lubbock, and then be distributed thru out the panhandle for irrigation.
Needless to say, it was not feasible, but the problem of the falling level of the Ogallala aquifer has not gone away.
You may recall a few years ago Boone Pickens and Mesa Water were given water rights from the Ogallala and were trying to sell that water to San Antonio or DFW. They eventually sold those water rights to 6-7 municipalities in the panhandle who needed it because Lake Meredith was going dry.
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