Desalination is a literal drop in the bucket of dealing with water scarcity issues. Desal requires a lot of energy and beyond that transporting fresh water from desalination plants inland (and generally uphill) to where it is needed for agriculture. The use of fossil water from ancient reservoirs like the Ogallala Aquifer at rates vastly beyond replacement has masked the issue for the time being but will result in extreme problems with scarcity once water becomes too difficult and costly to extract.
This is not simply a policy issue, or problems with political relations between states, although those exacerbate the problems. This is simply a problem with too many people overstressing an ultimately limited resource well beyond sustainability. Growing crops in the desert (due to favorable long seasons) certainly makes things worse, but the reality is that the Earth can sustain somewhere around a billion people indefinitely, and beyond that we are going to be constantly looking for desperate technological solutions to bolster dwindling reserves of fresh water and other scarce natural resources.
The Colorado River, of course, has long been “drying up” (or more correctly, being consumed along its length), as is the Rio Grande del Norte, as has to a lesser extent the Sacramento River and other major watersheds. The only solutions to this are more efficient use of water, and a reduction in water demand. Desalination, even on a vast scale and at great energy cost, can only provide a very small offset to current freshwater demand. Fanciful solutions of pipelining water from Alaska or the Great Lakes to the American Southwest are beyond plausibility, and even the major irrigation engineering projects around the world have run into substantial limitations and cost growth. Just look up the Libyan Great Man-Made River Project as an example.
“Understatement” is an understatement. The tributary to the Colorado River that’s the farthest to the north and east is Lake Granby in Colorado. That’s roughly 820 miles (and that’s a straight-lne measurement) from Duluth, Minnesota, the nearest point where one could draw water from the Great Lakes.
Duluth is 702 feet above sea level, Lake Granby 8,204 feet. In other words, you have to push the water uphill, WAY uphill. Now, the world’s longest aqueduct is Thirlmere Aqueduct in England, which runs for 96 miles.
I don’t have time right now to figure out how much water would be (theoretically) available, but I’m sure you’ll agree the cost would be staggering.
You might be interested in the Grand Contour Canal. The idea of super-long canals is not new. And pumping water uphill isn’t exactly rocket science. You just require energy. Nuclear power stations should cope admirably.
And the US can afford it. Hell, it could be a workfare project for all those millions of unemployed. If you’re implementing NAWPA, Canada would charge the US for the water and American farmers and industry would pay for the water they use.
Thanks for the link, but if I’m reading it correctly, the Grand Contour is supposed to be 310 ft. above sea level, which is a hell of a lot less than the 7,500 feet elevation difference between the Great Lakes and Lake Granby, as well as less than one-quarter of the distance. And I’m not even trying to factor in water loss from evaporation and seepage along the way.
Plus, the Grand Contour would supposedly have a capacity of 2,000 cubic feet per second, while the Colorado River at its southernmost (and therefore most depleted) measuring point in the U.S., flows at a minimum of 4,600 cu. ft./sec..
It’s like saying if the Goodyear blimp can carry eight passengers at up to 50 mph. all we have to do is scale it up and add 10 more engines so it can carry as many and go as fast as a Boeing 747.
You keep cavalierly saying that the US can afford it. But the only way we could is by significantly raising taxes. Right now - given the recent tax bill - we’re looking at a deficit of what, $850B? So if we did implement UHC and it saved what you say it will - both dodgy propositions - we’d only be at a $150B surplus. Or do you think we should deficit spend for it? Just remember that at normal borrowing rates (long term about 3%) every Trillion we borrow is another $30B we have to pay back every year over the life of the bonds.
Without real cuts to programs - which won’t happen as congress doesn’t like the idea of being voted out - or real hikes to taxes we can’t take on another large scale infrastructure program.
This idea is, to put it kindly, delusional. Or insane, take your pick.
Rosy projections of eventual national savings once the wonderfully efficient :dubious: government plan gets rolling still have to take into account what the federal government will be spending on UHC in the meantime. Factor in both major parties’ allergy to instituting the big tax increases that will be required, and we’ll be running such huge deficits that saving the Southwest from its water addiction on top of all our other obligations will be that much more difficult.
With Trudeau involved, chances are you would catch him on a good day during negotiations when he’s stoned and he’d gladly sign it off as a gift complete with free shipping.
The Great Lakes actually have a surprisingly small watershed, made even smaller but such projects as reversing the flow of the Chicago river. Most water in that region drains into the network feeding the Mississippi. The majority of water in the Great Lakes is fossil water. Rainfall and watershed only maintains the level of the Lakes, there’s not a great replenishment going on, which is why municipalities that use Lake Michigan water are required to treat their sewage and return it to the lake and if they can’t do that to acceptable levels they don’t get lake water.
Start shipping significant quantities of Great Lakes water elsewhere you’ll wind up draining the lakes and there won’t be a natural mechanism to refill them. Congratulations, you just f***** up an ecosystem.
There’s already a treaty in place for the Great Lakes that pretty much says no, they aren’t. And neither are the other folks around the Great Lakes.
We look at what happened to the Colorado River and say nuh-uh, we want no part of that. If you want our water you can damn well move out here and put with winter like the rest of us.
Pumping water a mile or more uphill is a new thing. And ridiculous. Why not move to where the water is? So much less expensive both the “build” and maintain.
There have been prior threads on this sort of subject.
I won’t hijack this because it’s not the subject, but in the interests of combating ignorance I’ve always found this argument specious. Two things:
America already spends more than a trillion dollars - actually about 1.3~ on health insurance premiums. Retasking that money would solve some of the problems.
Medicare is the most efficient - in terms of overhead and admin - of any healthcare plan available in the US. Savings for both providers and patients would be significant.
End hijack. We can take it elsewhere if you so desire.
To be honest, you couldn’t be more correct. I have gone back and read newspaper articles as far back as when the river accidently was diverted into the, now, Salton Sea.
What they said way back then happened pretty much like everyone knew.
The only thing that is different, is a lot of the Western papers said by 2000 the Great Salt Lake would be dry
No, no we wouldn’t. You guys would just waste it, like you did with your own. And we have Defence Scheme Number One all prepared just in case you’re thinking about taking it. US Out of North America!
Another interesting factoid related to engineering and water in the west: Here in California, the 2nd largest power consumer in the states behind Texas, 19% of our power consumption is to move water. Here’s a cite from 2012.
I live in Minnesota, same state as Duluth and the headwaters of the Mississippi. Why the heck would we drain our own water supply, so that yet more people can live and grow grass in Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix and southern California? If an area can’t sustain their people and their crops, then we’ll be better off finding someplace else to raise that crop, and for those people to live.
It’s time to start applying a “true cost” to water where it is a limited commodity, and then let the open market decide if it makes sense to grow 3.5 million metric tons of hay in the western US, to be shipped overseas.
By comparison, if I’m reading the charts correctly, there are 23 states in the U.S. whose total power consumption is less than what California uses just to move water.
In CA a large amount of captured water us used to irrigate nut crops, which are the thirstiest of crops. We are not talking about “growing food” for Americans here, as most of the Almond and Pistachio crop is exported, for profit, of course.
Approximately 70 percent of U.S. almonds are exported as shelled almonds, with the remainder being either unshelled or manufactured.
Yes, the climate here is good for growing these things, if only there was enough water. It may be cheaper to just buy-out some of the Almond and Pistachio growers, remove the orchards, and then we would probably have plenty of water for the cities. At least, compared to building additional infrastructure to capture more water from far-flung places. IMHO additional publicly-funded water projects for growing these crops amounts to welfare for farmers (publicize the costs and risks while privatizing the profits).
Note: the 3rd link indicates 1 almond needs about a gallon of water to be produced. Think about that.
