# You know if all these pipeline people want to be useful why cant we get water pipelines? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078 "2021-06-11T22:54:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/62 "2021-06-12T22:33:23Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > The still common belief that we have the right to consume, rape and destroy every single thing on the planet if we feel the need to is the whole basis of the OP, so I should never have stuck my oar in. no its not I was thinking of places in the midwest and south that flood on a somewhat regular basis why couldn’t we take the extra water from the flood and send it to places that need it via reservoirs and a oil type of pipeline and I think its sufficiently answered …thanks guys ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2021, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/63 "2021-06-12T22:36:02Z")
We could build a 300 foot dam around Kansas. I don’t know if it would do any good from a watering standpoint, but it would be funny. ---
**Author:** ![TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thegunismightierthanthepen/32/2981_2.png) [@TheGunIsMightierThanThePen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheGunIsMightierThanThePen)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2021, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/64 "2021-06-13T02:43:13Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > We could build a 300 foot dam around Kansas. and make Kansas pay for it! ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2021, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/65 "2021-06-13T03:01:37Z")
One word: [icebergs](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/the-many-failures-and-few-successes-of-zany-iceberg-towing-schemes/243364/). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2021, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/66 "2021-06-13T03:24:14Z")
From Steven Solomon’s book, _Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization_: “Consider what will happen in water-distressed, nuclear-armed, terrorist-besieged, overpopulated, heavily irrigation dependent and already politically unstable Pakistan when its single water lifeline, the Indus river, loses a third of its flow from the disappearance from its glacial water source.” ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2021, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/67 "2021-06-14T16:35:44Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > “Consider what will happen in water-distressed, nuclear-armed, terrorist-besieged, overpopulated, heavily irrigation dependent and already politically unstable Pakistan when its single water lifeline, the Indus river, loses a third of its flow from the disappearance from its glacial water source.” Presumably until global warming, the river and glacial melt were a steady-state system. Removing the glaciers as a buffer from the equation means just that the rain (monsoons) go directly into the river. More likely it will turn the river into a more seasonal torrent as the water makes its way into the river immediately. The real question is what climate change does to the seasonal rain timing and volume. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/68 "2021-06-17T13:22:58Z")
The [Aral Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea) (which is, or rather was, a lake - the “sea” title comes from its size as what used to be the fourth-largest lake in the world, it was not part of the Ocean) at the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In the 1960s (when both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were part of the Soviet Union), the Soviet government decided to divert the two major rivers feeding it, to grow crops and cotton in the desert. Turned out to be a major disaster; the lake of, formerly, 26,000 square miles (more than Lake Michigan), is almost entirely gone now. The ecosystem that was dependent on that water collapsed, and salt and toxic poullutants from the former lake have covered large areas. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2021, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078/69 "2021-06-17T13:27:10Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Removing the glaciers as a buffer from the equation means just that the rain (monsoons) go directly into the river. More likely it will turn the river into a more seasonal torrent as the water makes its way into the river immediately. In other words: alternating flood and drought, instead of a useful and non-damaging steady flow. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-if-all-these-pipeline-people-want-to-be-useful-why-cant-we-get-water-pipelines/944078.md?page=3)