No, lets talk about her, Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, 15 arrested across L.A. County in crackdown on fraudulent benefit cards, Calmes: Heres what we should do about Marjorie Taylor Greene, Column: Did the DOJ just say Donald Trump can be held accountable for Jan. 6? As the largest single contractor of the SWP and a major supporter of Southern California water conservation and recycling programs, Metropolitan seeks feasible alternatives to convey Colorado River Aqueduct supplies or Diamond Valley Lake storage from the eastern portion of its service area or purified water from Pure Water Southern California . "My son will never know what a six-gallon toilet looks like," she said. It boggles the mind. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Yet their persistence in the public sphere illustrates the growing desperation of Western states to dig themselves out of droughts. Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorados Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. What if our droughts get worse? In the 20 years since he first had the idea, Million has suffered a string of regulatory and legal defeats at the hands of state and federal agencies, becoming a kind of bogeyman for conservationists in the process. By Brittney J. Miller, The Cedar Rapids Gazette. The Great Lakes Compact, signed by President George W. Bush in 2008,bans large waterexportsoutside of the areawithout the approval of all eight states bordering them andinput fromOntario and Quebec. While they didnt outright reject the concepts, the experts laid out multi-billion-dollar price tags, including ever-higher fuel and power costs to pump water up mountains or over other geographic obstacles. Experts say theres a proverbial snowballs chance in August of most of theseschemes being implemented. Developed in 1964 by engineer Ralph Parsons and his Pasadena-basedParsons Corporation,the plan would provide 75million acre-feet of water to arid areas inCanada, the United States and Mexico. He said a major wastewater reuse project that MWD plans to implement by 2032 could ultimately yield up 150 million gallons of potable water a day from treated waste. The California water wars of the early twentieth century are summed up in a famous line from the 1974 film Chinatown: Either you bring the water to L.A., or you bring L.A. to the water. Nearly a hundred years have elapsed since the events the film dramatizes, but much of the West still approaches water the same way. Heres why thats wise, Nicholas Goldberg: How I became a tool of Chinas giant anti-American propaganda machine, Opinion: Girls reporting sexual abuse shouldnt have to fear being prosecuted. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. A Kansas groundwater management agency, for instance, received a permit last year to truck 6,000 gallons of Missouri River water into Kansas and Colorado in hopes of recharging an aquifer. There are no easy fixes to a West that has grown and has allocated all of its water theres no silver bullet, she said. A man from Minnesota wrote to the Palm Springs Desert Sun earlier this month and expressed similar sentiments, warning, If California comes for Midwest water, we have plenty of dynamite.. Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesnt always have enough water to spare. It would turn the Southwest into an oasis, and the Great Basin into productive farmland. John Kaufman, the man who proposed the Missouri River pipeline, wants to see the artificial boundaries expand. Power from its hydroelectric dams would boost U.S. electricity supplies. The actual costs to build such a pipeline today would likely be orders of magnitude higher, thanks to inflation and inevitable construction snags. Yet some smaller-scale projects have become reality. Design and build by Upstatement. In northwestern Iowa, a river has repeatedly been pumped dry by a rural water utility that sells at least a quarter of the water outside the state. Moreover, we need water in our dams for. Gavin Newsom reaffirming his support for the ambitious proposal. Clouds of birds hundreds of species live in or travel through Louisianas rich Atchafalaya forests each year, said National Audubon Society Delta Conservation Director Erik Johnson. Page Contact Information: Missouri Water Data Support Team Page Last Modified: 2023-03-04 08:46:14 EST The largest eastern river, the Mississippi, has about 30 times the average annual flow of the Colorado, and the Columbia has close to 10 times. The most obvious problem with this proposal is its mind-boggling cost. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants, excessive nutrients, and invasive species. Formal large-scale water importation proposals have existed in the United States since at least the 1960s, when an American company devised the North American Water and Power Alliance to redistribute Alaskan water across the continent using reservoirs and canals. Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesnt always have enough water to spare. Releasing more water downstream would come at the expense of upstream users . An in-depth feasibility study specifically on pumping Mississippi River water to the West hasnt been conducted yet to Larsons knowledge. The project would require more than 300 new dams,canals, pipelines, tunnels, and pumping stations. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. China, unlike the US, is unencumbered by NEPA, water rights and democratic processes in general. Doug Ducey signed legislation this past July that invested $1.2 billion to fund projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. Water from these and other large rivers pour. Scientists estimate a football field's worth of Louisiana coast is lost every 60 to 90 minutes. States have [historically] been very successful in getting the federal government to pay for wasteful, unsustainable, large water projects, said Denise Fort, a professor emerita at the University of New Mexico who has studied water infrastructure. That project, which also faces heavy headwinds from environmentalists, wouldcost an estimated $12 billion. The idea of diverting water from the Mississippi to the Colorado River basin is an excellent one, albeit also fantastically expensive. Even if the sticker price werent so prohibitive, there are other obstacles. The . The only newsroom focused on exploring solutions at the intersection of climate and justice. I think the feasibility study is likely to tell us what we already know, he said, which is that there are a lot less expensive, less complicated options that we can be investing in right now, like reducing water use. According to DPS, the driver of the semi-truck lost control of the truck on the icy I-40 freeway near Williams, striking a DPS patrol car parked by the side of the highway. But there are tons of things that can be done but arent ever done.. Any water diversion from the Mississippi to Arizona must be pumped about 6,000 feet up, over the Rockies. At comment sessions on Colorado's plan, he said, long-distance pipelines wereconstantly suggested by the public. The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. Rescue the oceans from the pollution that flood waters pick up and dump into the ocean, creating dead zones. Million told Grist that hes secured partial funding for the project from multiple banks and the infrastructure company MasTec, but it remains unclear how much he would have to charge to make the project profitable. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where its used for coastal restoration. No one wants to leave the western states without water, said Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Safety concerns increased in 2020 after a pipeline in Mississippi ruptured in a landslide, releasing a heavier-than-air plume of carbon dioxide that displaced oxygen near the ground. In southeastern California,officials at the Imperial Irrigation District, which is entitled toby far the largest share of Colorado River water, say any move to strip theirrights would result in legal challenges that could last years. The idea of a pipeline transecting the continent is not a new idea. It would cost at least $1,700 per acre-feet of water, potentially yield 600,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2060 and take 30 years to construct. This One thousand mile long pipeline could move water from the Eastern USA (Great Lakes, Ohio River, Missouri River, and Mississippi River) to the Colorado River via the Mississippi River. Meanwhile, watershed states in the U.S., and even counties havetaken actionto preventsuch schemes. "Arizona really, really wants oceanfront," she chuckled. The letter and others with an array of ideasgenerated hugeinterest from readers around the country and debate about whether the conceptsare technically feasible, politically possible orenvironmentally wise. Politics are an even bigger obstacle to making multi-state pipelines a reality. Drainage area 171,500 square miles . This latest version would curve up through the Wyoming flatlands and back down to Fort Collins, a distance of around 340 miles. . "We do not expect to see (carbon capture and storage) happen at a large scale unless we are able to address that pipeline issue," said Rajinder Sahota, deputy executive officer for climate change . Meanwhile, a rookie Democrat running for governor in Californias recall election last year proposed declaring a state of emergency in order to build a similar project. Savor that while your lawns are dying. A 45-mile, $16 billion tunnel that would mark California's largest water project in nearly 50 years took a step closer to reality this week, with Gov. Would itbe expensive? "The desalinationplant Arizona has scoped out would be by far the largest ever in North America,"said Jennifer Pitt, National Audubon Society's Colorado River program director. There are at least half a dozen major water pipeline projects under consideration throughout the region, ranging from ambitious to outlandish. LAS VEGAS -- Lake Mead has nearly set a new record when its water level measured at 1081.10 feet, according to the Bureau of Reclamation. It would carry about 50,000 acre-feet of water per year, much less than the original pipeline plan but still twice Fort Collins current annual usage. Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, pitched a bold idea at a US Chamber of Commerce event last week: divert excess Mississippi River water to the west to irrigate crops to reduce pressure on the stressed Colorado River.
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