Don’t even think about taking more water

Whenever California is devastated by drought or wildfires, readers send us their ideas for big projects billed as practical, albeit hugely expensive, adaptations to our changing climate. With an exceptional drought drying out much of the West at this time, one such idea has gained traction among some of our letter writers: Building another aqueduct.

The most recent example is a letter this week calling for connecting the Mississippi River to the Lake Powell reservoir on the Utah-Arizona border with a huge pipeline. Admittedly, such a mega-project built on mountain ranges and on two time zones would be infinitely less practical than Southern California in making better use of the precipitation that falls locally, but it’s hard to blame the people of an area that idolizes William Mulholland for it. kind of thinking. Massive aqueducts that import water hundreds of miles away – and devastate fragile ecological treasures in the process – have made Los Angeles what it is, and fast.

While support for this kind of heroic engineering can be expected in Los Angeles, it isn’t doing well in other parts of the country – as you’ll see in the letters here.

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For the publisher: Getting water from the Mississippi River to Lake Powell on the Colorado River would require at least 1,500 miles of pipeline. A pipeline large enough to carry a significant flow of water would be huge and extremely expensive.

Then, the elevation difference between Lake Powell and the Mississippi River is indeed 3,700 feet, but the pipeline is expected to cross the Continental Divide at a significantly higher elevation.

Then it is about overcoming the friction of flowing water. The energy required for this would be enormous. Only a small fraction of the energy used to pump water would be recovered upon delivery.

I’m afraid the fantasy of providing water from the Mississippi or some other distant source is just a fantasy.

The story continues

Fred Barker, Burbank

The author is a retired water engineer from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Electricity.

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For the publisher: Californians have to be the greediest people on the planet. You are using all of your water resources, and now some of you want to go east and use our resources. Hands off our water and build desalination plants yourself.

You are amazing. Just because your part of the country is drying up because you cannot use your own resources responsibly does not mean that you have permission to take from others.

Why don’t you move to where the water is instead of trying to steal it from others?

Jeffery Martin, Birmingham, Alabama.

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For the publisher: Once again I see letters advocating for the construction of a pipeline from the Mississippi River and even Gulf states across the country to fill the Colorado River reservoirs so that California can get clean drinking water. and irrigation.

Will Californians exercise eminent domain to seize land and rights of way in affected states? In case those of you in California don’t know, the Gulf States also experience droughts from time to time.

It would cost billions of dollars to acquire the land and over billions to build and operate the pipeline, and who is going to pay for it?

California has 840 miles of coastline. Set up a bunch of large-scale desalination plants and thus get all the water you want.

Donald Armstrong, Henniker, NH

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For the publisher: Why would any part of the country send you water? Put aside your preaching preaching and solve your own problems.

California has banned nearly all taxpayer funded travel in several states across this country, and now some of you are thinking the rest of us should save your bacon. Doctor, get well.

Chris Valvo, Post Falls, Idaho

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For the publisher: Leave the Mississippi River alone. If the people in California don’t know how to control the rain when it comes, you don’t have the right to take anything from the Mississippi.

Linda Ryan, Kansas City, Missouri

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For the publisher: Thanks to the reader who requested the construction of a pipeline to the Colorado River.

With all the engineers and think tanks in this country, you might think that someone has already imagined this solution. I think about it every time I read that flooded states and California are entering another terrible fire season.

I am sure that designing and executing such a plan would deserve something akin to a Nobel Prize, as the persistent drought and catastrophic forest fires affect so many people.

Diane Merendino, Marina del Rey

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For the publisher: To develop the letter calling for a Mississippi River pipeline, I suggest that whatever is built be a siphon.

As long as the inflow (the Mississippi River) is higher than the outflow (e.g., Death Valley), the magical laws of physics state that it would require no energy even when passing through the Rockies, once started (which would require energy).

Richard B. Tenser, Los Angeles

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For the publisher: It would be hard enough to build a water line over 1,000 miles long. But also raising that water over the Rockies and into Lake Powell to 3,700 feet so that it could power the Hoover, Glen Canyon, and Parker Dams would require more electrical power than this water would produce from these. dams.

David Fink, Los Angeles

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.