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The eastern United States has no shortage of water and presumably the states providing water would benefit economically from providing it to the areas that do.
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That isn’t the argument being made in the comment I replied to.
What exactly is you're comment responding to then? It seems to me it's relating to California's water utilization.
I understand that this is mostly for agriculture, but maybe let's stop building and expanding big cities in the desert. Golf courses in Phoenix, for example, seem like an irresponsible use of water.
This is the worst take that I can't avoid hearing about. How does one build a canal that moves water uphill for 1500 miles across the continental divide in these quantities? If not a canal, then how do we do it? Pipes? We're talking a million cubic feet per second in the Colorado river during high times, which has been completely drained and diverted by communities downstream. The keystone pipeline carries 50 cubic f…
As a reference, China has been doing this a similar project to interconnect the North (think Beijing etc) and South (think Shanghai) water system. Heck, they have been doing it since hundreds of year ago [2]. So I guess there is a precedent. Based on this thread, I would guess that a large amount of the problem will not be an engineering one, but political and social one. Constructing such a large mega project to div…
But [0] seems to mostly be gravity fed so doesn't need the construction of 4+ new nuclear power plant equivalent generators and as far as I can tell shorter. [1] is much shorter and proposes to move much less water
At this point, there is no feasibility studies on the NA East-West water canal. There is no idea on how efficient it is vs desalination (in terms of energy), its ecological impact, and the required cost for the design and construction.
My main idea is that we should not dismiss the idea and that the Army Engineering Corps should at least do feasibility studies on it*. A proper feasibility studies could unveil the true challenge, benefits, and disadvantage (rather than anecdotal guess) of the water canal.
I am not exactly familiar with the NA Southwest and Southeast but the canal could possibility bring other benefits, such as reducing the heat in the region and opening up new land for farming and irrigation. It could have a trigger a new economic growth while at the same time, reducing flood risk at the Southeast. There is also a possibility that the this could trigger a transfer of wealth (in terms of payment for water, technical skills etc) from the relatively prosperous south West Coast to the Southeast, reducing inequality. Of course, I am not eliminating the possibility that the canal could be a white elephant and trigger untold ecological and natural disaster, but unless a feasibility studies is conducted, we never know.
*US Government, or at least the Federal Entity, are already doing multiple kind of planning and research for dizzying array of contingency. Why should the same mindset is not applied for possible infrastructure development?
I understand that this is mostly for agriculture, but maybe let's stop building and expanding big cities in the desert. Golf courses in Phoenix, for example, seem like an irresponsible use of water.
Counterpoint: I grew up in the Midwest along the Kankakee river, and most infrastructure is built for flooding, as it can happen year round. Fresh water is not only abundant, there is often too much, and flooded fields and towns are a real problem. I am all for finding ways to move it west where people say they need it and are willing to pay a premium. Cities in the deserts of earth are more feasible than ever with i…
Note that the premium amount they would be willing to pay is approximately $0.0017 per litre, delivered treated to their doorstep.
[1] https://www.phoenix.gov/rates# says ~$5/unit, with each unit being ~750 gallons, or ~2850 litres
As a reference, China has been doing this a similar project to interconnect the North (think Beijing etc) and South (think Shanghai) water system. Heck, they have been doing it since hundreds of year ago [2]. So I guess there is a precedent. Based on this thread, I would guess that a large amount of the problem will not be an engineering one, but political and social one. Constructing such a large mega project to div…
There was also this project in USSR: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea So much water in that lake, right? But it went from 4th largest in the world to no lake.
The letter proposed in this thread seems to understand the danger of the taking too much water and thus propose a reasonable limits of 2.5-5%. The limits could change based on a more detailed feasibility studies (which is the main point of the author, let's think about it.)
And much of this is across already arid, water starved land. I'm guessing West Texas and New Mexico will want their own cut of water in return for permitting the project to cut their states in two. You might need to double your total take to satisfy everybody.
I understand that this is mostly for agriculture, but maybe let's stop building and expanding big cities in the desert. Golf courses in Phoenix, for example, seem like an irresponsible use of water.
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There was also this project in USSR: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea So much water in that lake, right? But it went from 4th largest in the world to no lake.
It seems, in my subjective opinion based on reading the Wikipedia article, the engineering standards employed by the Soviets in the Aral project is subpar. Furthermore, the 'destruction' of the Aral sea, based on my reading of the article, is considered as an acceptable to the Soviets (they know that the Aral will shrunk). T The letter proposed in this thread seems to understand the danger of the taking too much wate…
But concern for quality of environment for others vs corporate profit? Hmm not sure. The initial overuse of water resources in the West, endless stories of top soil and water table irreversible pollution with one chemical or other, or the reports that gas and oil companies had a full perspective in global warming in 1990s...
I'd agree, there possibly is an amount of water you could safely divert, and it is this kind of study that would determine it, but I'm not sure if the end result would reflect a sustainable solution.