Gulf of California, actually.
Moving from IMHO to General Questions.
Of course! Alter the climate by changing the ocean’s current! Why did no one think of this before?
:smack:
If the compact does not include a clause requiring that states which ship great lakes water off to the desert be nuked until flat and glassy, it is an oversight.
The last time Lake Michigan was high was 1986 (100-yr high).
The Great Lakes stay around an average height, but fluctuate at an unpredictable rate. What do you think would happen if “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.”?
Maybe we should pump water away when they are high, but pump water back when they are low? Wouldn’t that be fair?
Since they are low now, give us some water, you ungrateful wretches!!!
There’s also the small problem that Chicago, at the foot of Lake Michigan is 597 feet above sea level while Santa Fe, where Bill Richardson lives, is 7,260 feet above sea level. Also, the two cities are more than 1,000 miles apart and any pipeline would cross the New Madrid earthquake fault. Assuming you want at least as much water volume as carried by the All-American Canal, that means you have to construct a canal longer than the Ohio River, wider than the Hudson River and running uphill.
It would be easier just to move everyone back East.
I vote we cut 'em loose, set 'em adrift, and wash our hands of the matter.
Secede now!
Except for the first time the lakes are “low” and the folks in Arizona need to water their golf courses and then… “We spent eleventy billion tax dollars on that pipeline and look at how big those lakes are and we neeeeeeeeeed that water!!!”
It would make a little more sense to use the Great Lakes as merely a conduit of water, rather than as a source directly. The source instead being diverted Canadian rivers which currently flow into the arctic. This could offset some of the increased fresh water entering the arctic ocean due to melting of the Greenland icecap.
Now, let’s consider that Chicago is 177 meters above sea level, and Phoenix is 337 meters. Las Vegas varies from 600 meters to nearly double that (the low figure is the Strip, but much of the city lies at higher elevation). In between are the Rocky Mountains, with Albuquerque, a typical relatively low spot in them, at 1600 meters. Water, of course, runs downhill. So depending on where this water, needed for navigation and tourism in the Great Lakes, is going, it needs to be pumped (a) vertically nearly 1.5 kilometers, and (b) nearly 2500 kilometers horizontally, largely across arid areas where evaporation would be an issue. A better solution might be to lop a cubic mile or two off the Antarctic ice shelves and tow it north.
The former Soviet Union attempted that. In the case of the Aral Seas diversion, it has been a disaster.
Be much better to drag it down from the Arctic would it not?
Save crossing the equator and all that.
Then you could get get the bonus of a NorthWest passage a few decades sooner.
Have any of you ever seen the water in the Great Lakes? What makes you think it’s suitable for drinking? Those of us who live around the great lakes don’t drink that water.
Want a bet? Where do you think the water in your faucet comes from then? Just because you don’t personally walk to the lake with a bucket to bring home water doesn’t mean that your water utility isn’t doing basically the same thing. Of course, they probably filter it a bit, but it’s all the same water.
I used to live in Chicago, and I know for a fact that Chicago’s water comes from the lake. In fact, on clear days you can see water reclamation plants about a mile or two off shore – I never knew what they were until one day a tour guide told me. See Water crib - Wikipedia “The City of Chicago is supplied with drinking water from Lake Michigan”.
Lots of places are wanting Great Lakes water for drinking.
Areas that are just outside of the great lakes drainage basin are fighting tooth and nail to be allowed to tap into the lakes for water supply. Waukesha, just west of Milwaukee is in the midst of such a battle. They may eventually succeed, but to do so, they have to show they can’t get by with their own supplies even with extensive conservation, plus they are required to return all waste water, fully treated, back to the great lakes drainage basin.
Communites further away from the basin don’t stand a chance of getting approved for Great Lakes water.
Yeah, the Chicago pumping plants are located miles off shore and pump from near the bottom of the lake where the water is cleaner. And of course it’s still treated before it hits your bathroom tap.
We don’t? All the water in my town and many towns around me comes right from Lake Superior.
And, for the record, I don’t have any issue drinking Lake water directly from the Lake. By my figuring, it’s less risky than eating hamburger, lettuce, or eggs from the grocery store.
It’s hard to be worried about water so clear and clean that when kayaking in 30 feet of water, you get vertigo because when you look down, it seems like you’re floating in air.
You’re confusing two different situations. Water was diverted away from the Aral Sea, for irrigation, causing it to shrink. The proposed Northern river reversal you linked to would divert water that is flowing to the Ocean, possibly sending some of it into the Aral Sea to replenish it.
I live around (on, actually) Lake Michigan and the water in front of my house is pure and clean, most of the time. You must be thinking of some other Great Lakes.
Cleveland’s water comes almost entirely from Lake Erie, and consistently is at or near the top of national lists for clean, good-tasting water - and you can get 15 gallons for just a penny!: http://www.clevelandwater.com/About_us/History.aspx