Posted on 07/01/2022 6:22:47 AM PDT by libh8er
Citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure don’t need all that water. All it does is cause flooding and massive tax expenditures to repair and strengthen dikes.
The best solution would be for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure on the Mississippi to Lake Powell, fill it, and then send more water from there down the Colorado to fill lake Mead.
About 4.5 million/gals a second flow past that structure on the Mississippi. As mentioned, New Orleans has a problem with that much water anyway, so let’s divert 250,000 gallons/sec to Lake Powell, which currently has a shortage of 5.5 trillion gallons.
This would take 254 days to fill.
Lake Mead has a somewhat larger shortage, about 8 trillion gallons, but it could be filled in about 370 days at 250,000 gallons/sec.
Within a year and eight months of the aqueduct’s finish, both reservoirs would be filled and most of the Southwest’s water problems would be gone. We built a California aqueduct that saved Southern California and a crude oil pipeline across Alaska that were far more difficult than this proposal.
IMO, California is single-handedly responsible for much of the dearth of water throughout the southeast US.
Enviro-whackos have a fraudulent claim of an "endangered species" for every square acre in the U.S.
This began in the 80s to obstruct development.
Exactly correct, and in the last 10-15 years we have experienced issues w/the Mississippi river being too low for barges and other freight traffic to move. So this idea gets a big NO from me.
All you have to do is take the electricity that would have gone to charging EVs and use it to pump water. Of course, that’s electricity that won’t be available anyway, so it might as well go to not pumping water as well as not charging EVs.
Yup. They’re idiots. Water flows down hill and needs to be pumped up hill, unless you have the right condition for a giant siphon. It reminds me of the California high speed rail boondoggle that engineers suddenly realized that there were high mountains in the way five years after the project was approved.
The elevation of Lake Powell is 3,652 feet..... The Mississippi cannot be too much above sea level. 100-200-300 ft? Depending on what part of the Mississippi River.
So pumping Mississippi water to Lake Powell would burn up lots of fossil fuels.
California worked fine with 10-15 million people, 20 million tops. All the infrastructure was built in the 40s to 60s for 20 million people. Now the state has 40 million.
It’s somewhat of a self-correcting problem because, the fine weather and scenery notwithstanding, it’s become a real sh!thole and people are leaving. They aren’t leaving fast enough, though. You just have to get 20 million to leave.
The recent droughts are so bad that I’m not sure California would work even with 20 million people.
True, but barges and ships don't stay upstream. Removing the capability to travel to the Gulf would essentially shut it down.
That’s just under twice the length of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (800 miles). That was built in 1975-1977.
Maybe if California didn’t commit environmental terrorism by allowing unrestricted illegal immigration and taking on MILLIONS of citizens to gain political power, far beyond what their states resources could handle and draining other states reserves beyond the ability to recharge they wouldn’t have to steal water from eastern states.
I can’t decide whether to sing in my mind “Rocky Mountain High” or “Black Water.”
I wrote a business plan for such a private project (since the government is so obviously not doing its job).
It penciled out nicely.
Then I pinched myself as to who it would benefit the most and I immediately woke up.
Seriously, though, I reviewed such a possibility years ago; seemed feasible.
And you have no clue about where the Rocky Mountains are. I agree its a ridiculous engineering challenge, but if you draw a line from New Orleans to Lake Mead it won't cross the Rockies.
Kinda seems to me that this clown needs to look at a map. It’s over 1400 miles from the Old Control Structure to Lake Powell. What kind of pumps can handle 250,000/gallons per second and maintain that flow for 1400 miles? How big would the diameter of the pipe have to be to handle that kind of load?
Begs the question:
A canal from the Columbia River or Cascades in the rainy NorthWest to Las Vegas should be a consideration.
We did the Central Arizona Project with canals. Peeps are moving southwest
“perhaps a trans continental pipeline to take water from flood zones to areas of severe drought.”
I said the same thing many years ago when I saw all the flooding from rives overflowing. Some of that water can flow to Texas and other Southwestern states for farming. Produce more of our own food for domestic use and export. Whole new economies will open up and flourish and millions of jobs will open with it.
You can also do this in other countries which are arid by nature. Few desalination facilities along the African coastline, piping clean water inland for consumption and farming. Plant millions of trees to sequester carbon.
The libs would never allow it even if it were feasible.
> that’s electricity that won’t be available anyway, so it might as well go to not pumping water as well as not charging EVs <
Now that’s funny right there!
Eco-morons would put the kibosh on it. Might harm some little bug.
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