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The pull seems to have been to get Canada to either sell their own water or even bring down water all the way from Alaska. I tried to find it quickly but can't

The pull seems to have been to get Canada to either sell their own water or even bring down water all the way from Alaska. I tried to find it quickly but can't. I seem to remember hearing on the radio about some 100 year contract to sell water cheaply from BC or Alberta to CA. So potentially it's one of those scrapped plans or maybe they figured how bad the plan was just buried it. I can easily find propaganda trying to co Vince us that Canada has so much water and that it magically renews itself that it would be stupid not to sell it. Over and over. Which is in stark contrast to my experience here. We have had less and less snow in recent years. We've had rivers running lower. We've had watering bans and lawns looking like we are in Arizona (yes, an exeggeration to make a point) more often in recent years. This year is an exception with more normal sun/rain cycles returning after a really dry spring (lawns recovered - who cares - some crops not so much, other are doing much better than in recent years)

SllX 5y ago
Not sure if this is still the case under USMCA, but as I recall, Canadians have been very against selling water into the US because under NAFTA once they started, they couldn’t stop. Well, whether that was ever true or not, that was the reason I heard cited.
dehrmann 5y ago
This doesn't sound right. The pipeline would be longer than the Alaska Pipeline, but carry a commodity that retails for 3 2-3 cents per gallon, not $3.50.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > This doesn't sound right. The pipeline would be longer than the Alaska Pipeline, but carry a commodity that retails for 3 2-3 cents per gallon, not $3.50. That's a gasoline price, but don't they typically pump crude through pipelines? So more like $1.50 a gallon, based on my calculations. I suppose if they built such a pipeline, they'd have to charge a lot more than 2-3 a gallon for the water. Though as a project, it seems less ambitious than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tran.... Edit: I wonder if this was the (defunct) North American plan that was being referred to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power....
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    You're right on the price, but I compared retail to retail since there isn't really something like a barrel of crude water.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  How much of the cost of an oil pipeline is tied up in fighting opposition to it getting made and mitigation against the catastrophic effects of leaking oil? Surely a water pipeline would be cheaper to build, given the lower risks involved and the obvious benefits to everyone living near its path.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  I didn't know before trying to find online sources for what I remember hearing on the radio. But apparently there were/are some pretty crazy schemes people thought up out there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Pow... (this is old stuff, what I remember from the radio was pre-pandemic drive to the office radio reporting of recent events at the time)

SllX 5y ago

Not sure if this is still the case under USMCA, but as I recall, Canadians have been very against selling water into the US because under NAFTA once they started, they couldn’t stop. Well, whether that was ever true or not, that was the reason I heard cited.

dehrmann 5y ago

This doesn't sound right. The pipeline would be longer than the Alaska Pipeline, but carry a commodity that retails for 3 2-3 cents per gallon, not $3.50.

tablespoon 5y ago
> This doesn't sound right. The pipeline would be longer than the Alaska Pipeline, but carry a commodity that retails for 3 2-3 cents per gallon, not $3.50. That's a gasoline price, but don't they typically pump crude through pipelines? So more like $1.50 a gallon, based on my calculations. I suppose if they built such a pipeline, they'd have to charge a lot more than 2-3 a gallon for the water. Though as a project, it seems less ambitious than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Transfer_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tran.... Edit: I wonder if this was the (defunct) North American plan that was being referred to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power....
- dehrmann 5y ago
  You're right on the price, but I compared retail to retail since there isn't really something like a barrel of crude water.
ashtonkem 5y ago
How much of the cost of an oil pipeline is tied up in fighting opposition to it getting made and mitigation against the catastrophic effects of leaking oil? Surely a water pipeline would be cheaper to build, given the lower risks involved and the obvious benefits to everyone living near its path.
tharkun__ 5y ago
I didn't know before trying to find online sources for what I remember hearing on the radio. But apparently there were/are some pretty crazy schemes people thought up out there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Pow... (this is old stuff, what I remember from the radio was pre-pandemic drive to the office radio reporting of recent events at the time)