Let's Build a Water Pipeline From the Pacific Ocean to Lake Mead

[K1052]

The ones who benefit from CA water aren't the farmers or citizens, it's the billionaires...like the Reznicks.

Kalifornien: Wasser und Macht (2017) ⭐ 7.3 | Documentary

1h 27m | PG

m.imdb.com

Distribution of said benefits of course is unlikely to be equitable.

 

[hal2kilo]

Not this again.

 

[Homerboy]

Pumping water hundreds of miles sounds like an extremely energy intensive process when you factor in distance and elevation differences.

Oil pipelines seem to be able to do it.

 

[K1052]

Oil pipelines seem to be able to do it.

It is physically possible but not remotely cost effective.

 

[manly]

Desalinization is very expensive, otherwise we already would be doing this all over the place.

Israel gets most of its potable water from desal. I think it's inevitable that the U.S. southwest (mainly California) will have significant desalination plants.

 

[Vic]

Water from the Columbia River. There is enough water to irrigate the entire western US.

DIAF, says this Oregonian.

 

[K1052]

Israel gets most of its potable water from desal. I think it's inevitable that the U.S. southwest (mainly California) will have significant desalination plants.

It will be a source but I know southern California largely intends to address its needs through recycling now. The costs from Carlsbad spooked a bunch of folks.

 

[Dave_5k]

Sounds crazy doesn't it. Lake Mead is the largest capacity water reservoir in the United States and serves water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada, as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland At just under 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean a pipeline is certainly feasible when you consider that the Colonial Pipeline for oil consisting of two tubes extends between Texas and New York and can deliver 3 million barrels of fuel per day.

So why haven't we already done this? It's not oil, and no one is going to line politician's pockets to get a water pipeline.

1) Why pipe water from the Pacific, up to Lake Mead, only to turn around and aqueduct it back down to Southern California? (25% of the water usage from Lake Mead goes to California I believe, simply backing that demand out would leave surplus in Lake Mead). So don't need massive pipelines all the way up to Lake Mead.
2) Cost, cost, cost. Users currently get water for basically free. Desalination costs roughly $2000/acre-foot for water. Southern California agricultural users pay <$100/acre-foot on average. And ~80% of the usage is agricultural...

So investing in large desalination plants to produce fresh water at $2000/acre-foot, in order to resell it at less than $100/acre-foot, for some odd reason hasn't found many interested investors. Although there has been some investment by forward looking municipalities that don't have to make a return on investment - and can force the cost increases along to their customers.

"Simply" put a much higher real price on the water for all users, and the market will adjust, at a fraction of the cost of large scale public works desalination.

 

[K1052]

1) Why pipe water from the Pacific, up to Lake Mead, only to turn around and aqueduct it back down to Southern California? (25% of the water usage from Lake Mead goes to California I believe, simply backing that demand out would leave surplus in Lake Mead). So don't need massive pipelines all the way up to Lake Mead.
2) Cost, cost, cost. Users currently get water for basically free. Desalination costs roughly $2000/acre-foot for water. Southern California agricultural users pay <$100/acre-foot on average. And ~80% of the usage is agricultural...

So investing in large desalination plants to produce fresh water at $2000/acre-foot, in order to resell it at less than $100/acre-foot, for some odd reason hasn't found many interested investors. Although there has been some investment by forward looking municipalities that don't have to make a return on investment - and can force the cost increases along to their customers.

"Simply" put a much higher real price on the water for all users, and the market will adjust, at a fraction of the cost of large scale public works desalination.

Carlsbad is supposedly doing it for $2400 per acre-foot. Which is pretty yikes.

There is a reason San Diego is going to spend a few billion dollars basically copying what Orange County did for recycling which runs $500-$600 per acre-foot instead.

 

[uclaLabrat]

Well yes, I also would not let CA valley farmers empty all the aquifers for their water intensive export crops but clearly that's not going to happen either. The rural west will be F'd sooner or later for good once there is literally nothing else to take. The cities will be ok because they can afford things.

Especially if they then export those products. Free-marketers will scream but if you wake water from the central valley to grow almonds by the bushel and then ship them the fuck overseas, you can fuck right off.

 

[hal2kilo]

DIAF, says this Oregonian.

And also says this Washingtonian.

 

[herm0016]

Oil pipelines seem to be able to do it.

much of the time oil pipelines use gravity and pressure from the compressor stations in the oil fields that are powered by the oil or nat gas itself. along the way they use some of that to also power monitoring equipment using external combustion and thermoelectric generators (tecs) they are also often going down in net elevation over long distances to the coast for export or refining.

 

[MrSquished]

Might have to encourage people to eat less cow, but that's communism

 

[BoomerD]

And also says this Washingtonian.

And this Warshingtonian sez "Fuck the fuck off."

Also, as mentioned in the OP, at least SOME of the water from the Colorado ends up in Mexico. Why should the USA over-pay to treat water that going to end up in Mexico?

 

[feralkid]

And this Warshingtonian sez "Fuck the fuck off."

Also, as mentioned in the OP, at least SOME of the water from the Colorado ends up in Mexico. Why should the USA over-pay to treat water that going to end up in Mexico?

It ALL used to go to Mexico.

Also, most of the Colorado River watershed used to BE Mexico.

Oh, shit; did I just teach CRT?

 

[BoomerD]

Chefs declare war on a trendy fruit because of its enormous carbon footprint

One avocado requires 60 gallons of water to grow.

thehill.com

 

[IronWing]

And this Warshingtonian sez "Fuck the fuck off."

Also, as mentioned in the OP, at least SOME of the water from the Colorado ends up in Mexico. Why should the USA over-pay to treat water that going to end up in Mexico?

We already do. We built a very expensive desalinization plant to treat irrigation return water from a subsidized irrigation district so that welfare farmers could continue to grow cattle feed and spectacularly subsidized* cotton in the desert.

Yuma Area Office | Lower Colorado Region | Bureau of Reclamation

www.usbr.gov

*US cotton subsidies are so bad, the Brazilian government filed a complaint against the US with the WTO. Rather than scale back the handouts to US cotton farmers, the US settled the complaint by agreeing to subsidize Brazilian cotton farmers as well.

 

[Dave_5k]

*US cotton subsidies are so bad, the Brazilian government filed a complaint against the US with the WTO. Rather than scale back the handouts to US cotton farmers, the US settled the complaint by agreeing to subsidize Brazilian cotton farmers as well.

The US “only” pumped $46 billion in direct payments to US farmers in 2020. With the substantial majority going to less than 100k farms.

Note that all US farms, combined, contributed a total of $136 billion to GDP in 2019, so “only” about a 33% average effective subsidy… from direct cash payments alone. This is without accounting for a wide range of other indirect subsidies (such as heavily subsidized water supplies and insurance)

 

[1prophet]

It ALL used to go to Mexico.

Also, most of the Colorado River watershed used to BE Mexico.

Oh, shit; did I just teach CRT?

Perhaps in the minds of those that depend on the racial bogeyman to be the cause behind all their problems, but in reality rivers and access to their waters is a problem that occurs in many other places irrespective of any CRT nonsense.

Ethiopia’s massive Nile dam explained

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the source of an almost decade-long diplomatic standoff in the region.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[1prophet]

much of the time oil pipelines use gravity and pressure from the compressor stations in the oil fields that are powered by the oil or nat gas itself. along the way they use some of that to also power monitoring equipment using external combustion and thermoelectric generators (tecs) they are also often going down in net elevation over long distances to the coast for export or refining.

Solar and wind power can provide power for pumps, Romans 2000 years ago had aqueducts no reason with today's technology that a similar national project couldn't be done in the USA, after all didn't we throw away trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The National Aqueduct

The National Aqueduct is designed to generate and store energy by transporting billions of gallons of fresh, desalinated water across our nation.

nextgiantleap.org

 

[skyking]

As far as growing crops in the right places, the economy of building endless tilt up buildings in the valleys east and south of Seattle with great soils is a fine example. They pave over and concrete all this farmland, when these buildings could go on the glacial till on the surrounding hills.
The farmland is taxed out of reasonable usage. We shoot ourselves in the foot this way over and over.
Sure it cannot compete in productivity with irrigated lands in California, but the water just falls from the sky. WTF?

 

[imported_tajmahal]

A water pipeline from Minnesota down south to the Colorado river in Colorado. About a 1,200 mile pipeline.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

If you look into the water use in California, you'd see that a huge part of the water held in reservoirs is simply pumped into the ocean and wasted.

California Releasing Water from Reservoirs, Claiming Drought Conditions – California Globe

californiaglobe.com

Why Does California Let Billions Of Gallons Of Fresh Water Flow Straight Into The Ocean?

A Q&A with Ashoka Fellow and urban water expert Andy Lipkis If you’ve been paying attention, you know that California is in the midst of a severe multi-year drought. Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown, standing on a dry Sierra meadow that’s normally buried under many feet of snow this time...

www.forbes.com

 

[alien42]

and people thought the Salton Sea was a good idea.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

and people thought the Salton Sea was a good idea.

No they didn't. The Salton Sea was an accident that happened while they were building canals to manage Colorado River water

Salton Sea - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"In 1900, under governor James Budd, the California Development Company began construction of irrigation canals to divert water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink, a dry lake bed. After construction of these irrigation canals, the Salton Sink became fertile for a time, allowing farmers to plant crops.[8]

Within two years, the Alamo Canal became filled with silt from the Colorado River. Engineers tried to alleviate the blockages to no avail. In 1905, heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused the Colorado River to swell, overrunning the third intake cut into the bank of the river and sending the flood into the Alamo Canal. The resulting flood poured down the canal, and down two former dry arroyos, the New River in the west, and the Alamo River in the east, each about 60 mi (97 km) long.[9] Over about two years, these two newly created rivers carried the entire volume of the Colorado River into the Salton Sink.[10][11]

The Southern Pacific Railroad tried to stop the flooding by dumping earth into the canal's headgates area, but the effort was not fast enough, and the river eroded deeper and deeper into the dry desert sand of the Imperial Valley. A large waterfall formed as a result and began cutting rapidly upstream along the path of the Alamo Canal that now was occupied by the Colorado. This waterfall was initially 15 feet (4.6 m) high, but grew to 80 feet (20 m) high before the flow through the breach was stopped. Originally, the waterfall was feared to recede upstream to the true main path of the Colorado, becoming up to 100 to 300 feet (30 to 90 m) high, when it would be practically impossible to stop the flow.

As the basin filled, the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding, and Torres-Martinez Native American land were submerged. The tribe's reservation now straddles the northern end of the lake.[12] The sudden influx of water and the lack of any drainage from the basin resulted in the formation of the Salton Sea.[13][14]"