People fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta's Elk Slough near Courtland, California, on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. Other forms of augmentation, like desalination, are also gaining popularity on the national scene as possible options. California uses 34 million acre-feet of water per year for agriculture. The trooper inside suffered minor injuries. The Arizona state legislature allocated seed money toward a study of a thousand-mile pipeline that would do exactly this last year, and the states top water official says hes spoken to officials in Kansas about participating in the project. The Western U.S. is experiencing its driest period in more than a thousand years, according to scientists from UCLA and Columbia University. after the growth in California . I have dystopian nightmares aboutpipelines marching across the landscape, saidglobal water scarcity expert Jay Famiglietti. Dothey pay extra for using our water? Local hurdles include endangered species protections, wetlands protections, drinking water supply considerations and interstate shipping protections. Why are they so hard to catch? . The memorial is seeking Mississippi River water as a solution to ongoing shortages on the Colorado River as water levels reach historic lows in the two largest reservoirs on the river, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. "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. Million sued, and he says he expects a ruling this year. The project would have to secure dozens of state and federal permits and clear an enormous federal environmental review; moving the water would also require the construction of several hundred megawatts of power generation. Its one of dozens of letters the paperhas received proposing or vehemently opposing schemes to fix the crashing Colorado River system, which provides water to nearly 40 million people and farms in seven western states. Reader support helps sustain our work. Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. Million himself, though, is confident that his pipeline will get built, and that it will ensure Fort Collins future. But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.. "Arizona really, really wants oceanfront," she chuckled. 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. Then take it out of the southern tip of the aquifer in Southern Colorado. Facebook, Follow us on Famiglietti also said while oil companies are willing to spend millions because their product yields high profits per gallon, that's not the case with water, typically considered a public resource. But interest spans deeper than that. She and others worked to persuade reluctant consumers, builders and policymakers to ditchwidely usedsix-gallon flush toilets in favor of perfectly effective two-gallon versions. Instagram, Follow us on The Southern Delivery System in the nearby Arkansas River Basin pipes water from Pueblo County more than 60 miles north to Colorado Springs, Fountain and Security. Their technical report, which hasnt been peer-reviewed. (Unrecognizable. Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis, July 11). It would turn the Southwest into an oasis, and the Great Basin into productive farmland. Even if the government could clear these hurdles, the odds that Midwestern states would just let their water go are slim. And biologists andenvironmental attorneys saidNew Orleans and the Louisiana coast, along with the interior swamplands, need every drop of muddy Mississippi water. Anyone who thinks we can drain the aquifer and survive is grossly misinformed. 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. Known as one of the greenest commercial buildings in the world, since it opened its doors on Earth Day in 2013 the Bullitt Center has been setting a new standard for sustainable design. 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. Steps are being taken to address water issues in Buckeye. The pipeline would help it tap another 86,000 acre-feet of . A drive up Interstate 5 shows how muchland has been fallowed due tolack of water. And there are several approved diversions that draw water from the Great Lakes. To the editor: With the threat of brownouts and over-stressed power grids, dwindling water resources in California and the call to reduce consumption by 15%, I want to point out we are not all in this together. The Old River Control Structure, as it was dubbed, is also the linchpin of massive but delicate locks and pulsed flows that feed the largest bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands in the United States, outstripping thebetter-known Okefenokee Swamp that straddles Georgia and Florida. 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. When finished, the $62 billion project will link Chinas four main rivers and requiresconstruction of three lengthy diversion routes, one using as its basethe1,100-mile longHangzhou-to-Beijing canal, which dates from the 7th century AD. Fort, the University of New Mexico professor, worries that the bigwigs who throw their energy behind large capital projects may be neglecting other, more practical options. Famiglietti saidit's time for a national water policy, not to figure out where to lay down hundreds of pipesbut to look comprehensively at the intertwining of agriculture and the lion's share ofwater it uses. 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. Your support keeps our unbiased, nonprofit news free. Moreover, we need water in our dams for. Every year, NAWAPA would deliver 158 million acre-feet of water to the US, Canada, and Mexico more than 10 times the annual flow of the Colorado River. Another businessman in New Mexico has pushed plans to pump river water 150 miles to the city of Santa Fe, but that water would have to be pumped uphill. Senior citizens dont go to wave parks. We can move water, and weve proven our desire to do it. But Westford and her colleague Brad Coffey, water resources manager,said desalination is needed in the Golden State. Even at its cheapest, the project would cost about twice as much per acre-foot of water delivered than other solutions like water conservation and reuse. Its much easier to [propose] a shining pipeline from the Mississippi River that will never be built than it is to grapple with this really unpleasant truth.. I think it would be foolhardy to dismiss it as not feasible, said Richard Rood, professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Coffey said the project isn't really a pipeline, but more "a bypass for an aging 60-year-old"system. All rights reserved. The Colorado River is drying up. 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. 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. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, prompting concerns over river navigation. I can't even imagine what it would all cost. 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. USGS 05587500 Mississippi River at Alton, IL. It boggles the mind. of Engineers has turned back official requests for more water from the Missouri River to alleviate shortages on the Mississippi. Last time I heard, we are still the United States of America.". Would itbe expensive? Other legal constraints include the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Protection Act and variousstate environmental laws, said Brent Newman, senior policy director for the National Audubon Society's Delta state programs. Politics are an even bigger obstacle for making multi-state pipelines a reality. The project would require more than 300 new dams,canals, pipelines, tunnels, and pumping stations. The two reasons: 1) the process of moving water that far, and that high, wouldn't make economic sense; 2) Great Lakes water is locked down politically. he said. But, as water scarcity in the West gets more desperate, the hurdles could be overcome one day. Stop letting excess water flow out to sea. But there are tons of things that can be done but arent ever done.. The water would be drained via a 36 inch pipe already installed four miles west of Sugarloaf Mountain outside Marquette. Let's be really clear here. It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.. In fact, she and others noted, many such ideas have been studied since the 1940s. Snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains have swelled to more than 200% their normal size, and snowfall across the rest of the Colorado River Basin is trending above average, too. But water expertssaid it would likely take at least 30 years to clear legal hurdles to such a plan. So moving water that far away to supplement the ColoradoRiver, I don't think is viable. The mountains are green now but that could be harmful during wildfire season. By the way, none of this includes the incredible carbon footprints about to be stomped on the environment. The total projected cost of the plan in 1975 was $100 billion or nearly $570billion in today's dollars,comparable to theInterstate Highway System. Viaderos team estimated that the sale of the water needed to fill the Colorado Rivers Lake Powell and Lake Mead the largest reservoirs in the country would cost more than $134 billion at a penny a gallon. Mississippi River drought will impact your grocery bill. Arizona state legislators asked Congress to consider a pipeline that dumps Mississippi water into the Green River, but there are alternate possibilities. 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. Janet Wilson is senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun, and co-authors USA Today'sClimate Point newsletter. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Waves of torrential rainfall drenched California into the new year. Officials imposed the state's first-ever water restrictions on cities and towns, and California farmers are drilling deeper and . The resulting fresh water would bepiped northto the thirsty state. 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. Heres how that affects Indigenous water rights, Salton Sea public health disaster gets a $250 million shot in the arm. Las Vegas' grand proposal is to take water from the mighty Mississippi in a series of smaller pipeline-like exchanges among states just west of the Mississippi to refill the overused. California Departmentof Water Resourcesspokeswoman Maggie Maciasin an email: In considering the feasibility of a multi-state water conveyance infrastructure, the extraordinary costs that would be involved in planning, designing, permitting, constructing, and then maintaining and operating such a vast system of infrastructure would be significant obstacles when compared to the water supply benefits and flood water reduction benefits that it would provide. Releasing more water downstream would come at the expense of upstream users . Still, he admits the road hasnt always been easy, and that victory is far from guaranteed. Snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains have swelled to more than 200 percent of their normal size, and snowfall across the rest of the Colorado River Basin is trending above average, too. The actual costs to build such a pipeline today would likely be orders of magnitude higher, thanks to inflation and inevitable construction snags. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. Each edition is filled with exclusive news, analysis and other behind-the-scenes information you wont find anywhere else. The plan would divert water from the Missouri River which normally flows into the Mississippi River and out to the Gulf of Mexico through an enormous pipeline slicing some 600 miles (970 . These canals and pipelines are . In 2012, the U.S. Department of the Interiors Bureau of Reclamation completed the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken within the Colorado River Basin at the time, which analyzed solutions to water supply issues including importing water from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Here are some facts to put perspective to several of the. Theyre all such hypocrites. This story is a product of theMississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University ofMissouri School of Journalismin partnership withReport For Americaand theSociety of Environmental Journalists, funded by the Walton Family Foundation. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. But it's doable. 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. But the idea hasnever completely died. We are already in a severe drought. The idea's been dismissed for as long as it's. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy. The drought is so critical that this recent rainfall is a little like finding a $20 bill when youve lost your job and youre being evicted from your house, said Rhett Larson, a professor of water law at Arizona State University. But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.. Amid a major drought in the Western U.S., a proposed solution comes up repeatedly: large-scale river diversions, including pumping Mississippi River water to parched states. The Mississippi used to flow through a delta full of bayous, shifting sad bars, And islets. As politicians across the West confront the consequences of the climate-fueled Millennium Drought, many of them are heeding the words of Chinatown and trying to bring in outside water through massive capital projects. Who is going to come to the desert and use it? Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. But grand ideas for guaranteeing water for the arid Westhave beenfloated for decades. Kaufman is the general manager of Leavenworth Water, which serves 50,000 people in a town that welcomed Lewis and Clark in 1804 during the duo's westward exploration. He said hes open to one but doesnt think its necessary. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants,. At one point, activists who opposed the project erected three large billboards warning about the high cost and potential consequences, such as the possibility that drawing down the Green River could harm the rivers fish populations. The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. Among its provisions, the law granted the states water infrastructure finance authority to investigate the feasibility of potential out-of-state water import agreements. Why it's a longshot: First, to get across the Continental Divide and into the Colorado River, you'd need an uphill pipeline about 1,000 miles long, which is longer than any other drinking water . Power from its hydroelectric dams would boost U.S. electricity supplies. What states in the Southwest have failed to do is curtail growth and agriculture that is, of course, water-driven. But interest spans deeper than that. 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. But Denver officials have expressed skepticism,because Missouri or Mississippi water isof inferior quality to pure mountain water. The idea of diverting water from the Mississippi to the Colorado River basin is an excellent one, albeit also fantastically expensive.