5 ms·
I wonder if it is possible to link Colorado and Missisipi river
by sabareesh 5y ago
I wonder if it is possible to link Colorado and Missisipi river
- lucasmullens 5y agoWhat? There's multiple full states in the way. What would that even accomplish?
- NortySpock 5y agoAlso a whole mountain range. It's like the grandparent poster forgot both to look at a map and that water runs downhill.
- paulcole 5y agothose are trivial implementation details
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago/s? If not, your definition of "trivial" is... unusual. The technology needed actually is trivial. The cost, on the other hand, is very much non-trivial.
- paulcole 5y agoLike Archimedes said, "Give me scrum points and a long enough sprint planning meeting and I can move the world."
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...
- zwieback 5y agowould be nice but kind of a big project: https://i.redd.it/igp7056s4a361.jpg https://i.redd.it/igp7056s4a361.jpg
- api 5y agoIt would probably be easier given the geography to build pipelines or canals from the Northwest or Canada.
- jzawodn 5y agoIf we can do it for oil, why not water?
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThat's how NYC gets its water.
- xyzzyz 5y agoYes, and their most recent water pipeline costs $6B and is going to take 50+ years to build. Not exactly practical for any place that’s not NYC.
- bluGill 5y agoGiven the way transport costs so much, I'd expect other English speaking countries could do it in 20 years for $4B, non-English speaking in 10 for $2.5B, down to Spain in 3 years for $.8B.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThey get it from places that are an hour's drive away, not from an entirely different watershed.
- xyzzyz 5y agoBecause oil is 3+ orders of magnitude more valuable than water, and we use 4 orders of magnitude more water than oil.
- cronix 5y agoNW is running low as well, so don't count on it. We're getting less snow each year, so the spring/summer melts aren't contributing nearly as much as it used to. I've been to about 20 different reservoirs (I like to fly drones there) around the state in recent weeks, and they are all way below average. Some places they're having to remove the docked boats or they'll be sitting on dirt and rocks soon. > The area has struggled with water scarcity for years – but this year has been unlike any other. Amid a historic drought, in May the federal government cut off all irrigation to farmers for the first time in more than a century, in an effort to conserve water for the endangered fish that also share this landscape. The move sparked fear and concern among farmers, some of whom have protested the decision, and put an already challenging way of life in doubt. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/drought-western-us-family-farms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/05/drought-... > The couple's well is among potentially hundreds that have dried up in recent weeks in an area near the Oregon-California border suffering through a historic drought, leaving homes with no running water just a few months after the federal government shut off irrigation to hundreds of the region's farmers for the first time ever. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/survive-wells-dry-amid-oregon-water-woes-79140502 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/survive-wells-dr... This water problem isn't happening in a vacuum.
- allturtles 5y agoThere actually is a pump + tunnel system connecting the Colorado and Mississippi river systems, though it runs the other way around, bringing water from the Colorado river drainage across the mountains to the east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_B._Adams_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alva_B._Adams_Tunnel The problem is that even once you cross the mountains to the Mississippi catchment, there isn't much water on the east side for hundreds of miles. If you wanted to get water from the Mississippi River itself all the way west to the Rockies, you'd have to pump it about a mile uphill just to get it to the Denver area.