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.
Get your own river. You Californians aren’t going to steal our water!
Besides, some liberal will claim to have found an endangered snail along the way and it would be shut down after spending $billions.
Dots connected thanks
Good point.
Actually, the mountains are good. CAP cleverly uses mountain ranges to run water around them, so the water can go downslope for a long distance. Not that many pump stations required!
In flat they would have to somehow pile up on one side and dig in on the other side.
Ah, but if you lower the MS think of all the swamp land that will be drained, and all the new marsh (used to be river bed) that will be revealed.
Redfin will make a killing selling new houses!!!
Of course. Supported by nuclear power generating plants.
Sam Kinison unavailable for comment but if he were he would tell the Las Vegans dying of thirst to, “LEAVE! Go to where there is water!”
—the casinos and “circus acts” only use 15% of the Clark County water—70% is “residential”—
You have to raise the level of the water by a minimum of 4,000 feet to cross the continental divide. It takes a lot of energy to do that.
Desalination plants take about 1.9 kwhrs per cubic meter of water. To raise a cubic meter of water 4000 feet takes about 3.3 kwhrs, ignoring friction losses. The friction losses might double that.
So, back of napkin, quick analysis, is the energy cost,ignoring infrastructure costs, is, at minimum, 75% more for moving water from the Mississippi river to California, as desalination plants.
Cost of the infrastructure comparison, I leave to others.
Seriously. Why not make an aqueduct to northern Nevada?
California already throws away much of the water they have. This “idea” is only treating a symptom of the actual problem.
“There is a little problem with this approach. It is known as the Rocky Mountains.”
Tesla can bore a tunnel through those. Just kidding but am wondering if Lake Powell is at higher elevation than the lower Mississippi.
I think an aquaduct from the rainy northwest would be cheaper.
Wait, wut? I though we only have a few more years until we are all flooded out?
Transporting large amounts of dihydrogen oxide across state lines would likely violate many environmental laws.
That chemical is a known cause of many deaths every year.
I’d have to do the math and I don’t feel like it but for a comparison the Saturn 5 rocket (bigest to ever fly) burned at little less than 4,000 gallons/second so it would take over 63 Saturn 5’s to pump 250,000 gallons per second.
India build some very similar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkWIE3vXe_A
what...and disturb the habitat of western walking worms?? or midwest hoping frogs...or the northern black ant??
No one has said anything about lowering the mighty Mississippi. They did say water not needed past the old river control structure, which obviously would need corroboration prior to being siphoned off.
Project does seem to have other issues such as the elevation difference and the Rocky Mountain barrier. At least someone is looking at ideas to solve the bigger issue of drought. My solution is for CA to build desalinization plants and pipe the water to their Utah reservoir called Lake Powell.
“Not one dime to save their sorry butts.”
Can’t argue with that. They need bigger problems than they have now to concentrate on and then maybe they will leave the rest of us alone.
Wouldn’t it be easier to simply reverse the flow of the Arkansas or Missouri rivers?
As others posted. It still has to go up over 3000 feet in elevation. There is still this little thing called ‘The Great Divide’. How will you bring water from the Mighty Miss across the Pecos and the Rio Grande?
Water does not run uphill.
Maybe we should compare and contrast an aqueduct vs. a pipeline.
New Orleans is built below water level. That’s why it floods so often
After three more years of Biden we will have enough illegals that we could form a bucket brigade from Mississippi to Arizona to ship all the water out there.
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