Why are there no proposals to pipe water from the Great Lakes to the arid western US? The volume of water there is truly enormous. Most of it just flows out the St. Lawrence river to the sea.
I believe Bill Richardson had the same idea because of course Eastern states have absolutely no need for the Great Lakes, there would be no environmental impact to piping water out of them and New Mexico absolutely needs the water for their lawns.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a beloved strategy for morons everywhere but it doesn’t work. Water shortages will get worse and while it will be a sad day for golf courses everywhere, people will have to realize that can’t always get what they want and will have to learn to adapt.
Since they are an international border (save Lake Michigan), Canada might have something to say about it.
The Great Lakes – St. Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement requires that each of the eight US states which border the Lakes, as well as Ontario and Quebec all have to agree to allow water to be removed. Back in the 90s, a Canadian company planned to extract water from the Lakes to send to Asia, I believe, but wasn’t able to go forward due to objections from the states.
Given that the four of the five Great Lakes are shared with Canada, and the Saint Lawrence River flows through Canadian territory, you might do better asking the Canadian government.
The agreement that 2ply refers to was partially the result of people in the Southwest saying “Boy, there sure is a lot of water up there that we could use…”
To us folks near the Lakes, the question is “Why don’t Southwesterners stop moving to the desert and trying to make it look like Ohio?”
Yeah, when I visited Las Vegas, I found it rather ridiculous that I saw some homes with grass lawns. It’s one of the most pointless, wasteful things I’ve ever seen. Anyone who moves to the desert should make sure they like sand and cacti first.
And I read recently that the water level was getting dangerously low in the lake system, with mariners having to worry about rocks and bars that were safe to pass over before. Bad plan.
The politicians love to claim that the Southwest is in a drought. This is 100% BS. The annual rainfall here in LA has been remarkably stable over the last 140+ years they have been keeping records. What HAS happened is our population has ballooned. So let’s let a few million more pour over the border…
And of course we have to flush millions of gallons into the Pacific Ocean and let the nut bearing trees die off. Great plan, guys. Kill off yet another industry we used to dominate. Our state is run by lunatics, creeps, and morons.
You can have our lake water when you can drain it out of our cold, damp bladders.
This is the nail right on the head…
The thing is cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are full of water. They have ample suplies of energy. Yet cities in Texas, and Phoenix are the boom towns.
Los Angeles can support an estimated 4 million without the Colorado River. OK now-a-days, LA has 4 million in the city limits without counting the metro area. It’s easy to see LA can’t exist, as it is, without the Colorado River. Same with Las Vegas.
Today the so much water is pumped out of the Colorado River, the waters no longer make it to ocean. The river is dry before it gets to the Gulf Of Mexico.
Now this is because of the Hoover Dam and other dams on the river. Can you imagine if you tried to put in a project like that today. First of all Mexico would throw a fit that you are killing off the river before it gets to Mexico and the states would be suing each other left and right.
The project, like so many others, only got pulled off because of the Great Depression.
So the real question is, why are businesses and people flocking away from cities with water, public transportation and good infrastructure, to new cities in the South and Southwest. Look at Atlanta and its water issues.
If you want to know why people are leaving Detroit for Los Angeles, check the weather forecast, annual temperatures, annual snowfall?
Since those are the reasons we have all or nice water. They clearly don’t need any of it, unless they’re very short sighted.
If you’re driven off by a little snow and rain then going to the desert makes perfect sense. You know, until you decide you want all the benefits of snow and rainfall without all that pesky weather. Then it’s just kind of silly.
Well maybe someday when we have unlimited cheap fusion energy (hahaha) they’ll be able to build a big de-salinization plant to make water for these people.
Or maybe they’ll have to pay real amounts of money for their currently underpriced water and that will make some people think twice about the stupid things they do with it out there.
Here is a related interesting thread from last year.
I live in Southeastern Michigan and am from California. I’d rather live through permanent winter in Detroit here than that hellhole you call Los Angeles.
Oh god, you live in Southern California. I’m so sorry. No one deserves LA.
Anyway, the OP’s plan is unsustainable, and would be unbelievably expensive. People need to learn how to live with their environments and not try to turn them into something else. Start by tearing out your lawns and replacing them with local vegetation.
Despite what people in warmer climates think, not everyone believes that hot weather is preferable to cold weather. I really missed snowy winters and the season change when I lived in an area with a fairly mild climate, and I know I’m not the only person who feels that way.
I prefer cooler weather too, but that doesn’t change the fact that millions of people in this country are flocking south. You’d have more of a point if we weren’t in the middle of a mass migration to warmer cities.
Wearen’t the Great lakes overflowing, just a few years ago? Lakeside properties in Wisconsin and Michigan were being washed away.
The lake levels are cyclical-we should pump water from them when they are high (and use the water to recharge the Western Aquifers), and leave them alone in times of recession.
A far better plan is to alter the climate of Southern California, by allowing the warm Baja Current to come north (we need to divert the cold California current out to sea).
Then there would be plenty of rain, and S. California would be like the Amazon Jungle.
Or better yet, people can stop being greedy and realize that altering the environment usually has disastrous consquences that negates whatever gain is realized. People should adapt to the environment they have chosen not the other way around.