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Is sending Mississippi water to West feasible?
- h2odragon 4y ago> Two hundred miles north of New Orleans At that point, calling the fluid in the Mississippi River "water" is stretching the definition. It is rich and chunky with the flavor of all the land it fell on as rain. It'll put hair on your chest and crayfish in your pockets. Drink enough of it and you'll start to call them crawdaddies. Sure its not hard to filter, but what will you do with all the silt? Look at how much effort we spend now dealing with all the silt right there. Without trying to handle it as part of water extraction. I think there's gonna be better luck looking elsewhere, desalinization looks like about as much effort and less distance to move the results.
- bombcar 4y agoReminds me of the running jokes in Don Rosa’s Life of Scrooge - Uncle Porthole is always finding new ways of describing how muddy the Mississippi is (I believe many taken from Twain).
- selimthegrim 4y agoThis reminds me of the time Wikipedia kept reverting edits to the article for “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” comparing fecal coliform levels above Vicksburg as a proportion of that of the Ganges.
- selimthegrim 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louisiana_Woman,_Mississippi_Man_(song)&oldid=953330487 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louisiana_Woman...
- verdverm 4y agoWhat if it's used for farmland only? Isn't that the main contributor to aquifer depletion in the midwest? Would the silt be helpful in that case?
- saalweachter 4y agoIn the farmland, but I'm guessing it'd be hell on the canals/aquaducts.
- h2odragon 4y agoI like the idea of moving it as a slurry to upland farms. Erosion remediation: put the dirt back. Still going to be expensive and difficult; it's heavy and its gritty and corrosive and erosive. Pumping river water eats pumps.
- verdverm 4y agoHow does this compare to pumping crude?
- mannykannot 4y agoCorrosive abrasive versus lubricant.
- verdverm 4y agoCrude is not without corrosion, but I can imagine silty water would be much worse https://www.corrosionpedia.com/internal-corrosion-of-pipelines-carrying-crude-oil/2/7282 https://www.corrosionpedia.com/internal-corrosion-of-pipelin...
- verdverm 4y agoIt occurs to me that your username could imply some expertise in this :]
- h2odragon 4y agoIt could, but doesn't; I've been in the river south of Memphis once long ago and had some relevant experience but not expertise. All hail the Army Corps of Engineers guys who actually design and are responsible for understanding our efforts to modulate that river. I've just helped scratch at the dirt in accordance with their directions a couple times.
- treis 4y agoRivers tend to carve their own channel. The Mississippi is an exception because of how little elevation change there is. But a properly engineered channel should remain clear. The silt ultimately would end up on farmers fields which is generally a good thing.
- rhexs 4y agoLet’s genocide thousands of species so California can grow almonds.
- webmobdev 4y agoThe idea is not really new. Similar suggestions have been made in India too over the last 2 decades - Interlinking of indian rivers to prevent floods and distribute water to areas that have less of it. It sounds all nice and logical, but everyone is unsure of the ecological impact.
- criley2 4y agoChina has a north/south water diversion "super project" underway. Same problem, different continent.
- selimthegrim 4y agoLibya did it but I doubt US wants to compare themselves to the late Gaddafi.
- cesarb 4y agoThere's one of these here in Brazil too: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposi%C3%A7%C3%A3o_do_rio_S%C3%A3o_Francisco https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposi%C3%A7%C3%A3o_do_rio_...
- MichaelCollins 4y agoInstead of looking for lebensraum to steal from their neighbors, California should charge people a fair price for the limited resources and tell Californians to move to more sustainable parts of the world if they don't like the shortages/expenses. If you want Mississippi water, pick up your ass and relocate it to one of the 32 states in the Mississippi watershed.
- zb1plus 4y agoThere's a lot of agriculture that occurs in California. I am certain people in the 32 states within Mississippi watershed eat a fair amount of food or enjoy lower food prices that occur in part because of California agriculture. Part of the whole reason of being in a 50 state union is to collectively pool our resources to improve everyone's lives and the wider economy.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoIf only there were some way of pricing the expense of producing something into the price paid by those who desire it.
- BayAreaEscapee 4y agoWasn't it the great economist Milton Friedman who said, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? Or was that someone else who said that? In all seriousness, the way the west (and California in particular) price water defies logic. All this talk about senior and junior water rights doesn't make any sense: it only benefits the entrenched incumbents. A properly setup market would simply price out water uses whose utility was materially less than demand of the produced product.
- dimitrios1 4y agoNot sure if being facetious, but just in case not or in case others are unfamiliar: It's a quotation used by the socialist trio of Cabet-Blanc-Marx, and itself has origins in scripture, just with a materialist reframing, instead of a spiritual one.
- smitty1e 4y agoIt sounds as though this idea could exacerbate climate change if it were implemented.
- atonse 4y agoHow come there isn't enough talk about desalinization? Or am I oversimplifying this? The western states are right next to an ocean (the largest one in fact) with sea levels and the amount of water rising faster than they could ever use it. There's basically unlimited (salt) water there. Desalinization is an extremely energy hungry process, but we also have a TON of sun and heat energy in these states as well that can be utilized.
- junofan 4y agoThe Coastal Act allows politicians to influence peddle. So you won’t hear from desalination experts in the popular press.
- nobodyandproud 4y agoNimbyism. Huntington Beach is a prime example.
- selimthegrim 4y agoSanta Barbara built a plant in the early 90s then mothballed it for 30 years, then had to spend a packet to upgrade it for reuse. Probably they are afraid of some gigantic sunk cost like that happening.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y ago23 years, but yeah. https://santabarbaraca.gov/government/departments/public-works/water-resources/water-system/water-sources/desalination https://santabarbaraca.gov/government/departments/public-wor...
- atyppo 4y agoBecause nuclear energy is the only viable (with the ability to not be capital-intensive if NIMBYs can be excluded from processes like siting) energy option for a process as energy-intensive as desalinization is. However, there's no realistic hope of excluding them.
- SECProto 4y agoOn an annualized basis, tapwater in San Francisco costs $3.68 per cubic meter[1], which is actually approaching the rate for desalination to be cost effective. (For agriculture, it still far far (far) away.) Traditional (distillation) desalination uses too much energy (10+ kWh per m3). Reverse osmosis plants drastically reduce that, to the 3kWh range[2]. From what I remember from my now-outdated university studies, the capital cost of the membrane was more the limiting factor, as they get fouled pretty quickly. Disposal of very-high-salinity brine is also an issue. [1] https://sfpuc.org/sites/default/files/accounts-and-services/2022_23_Rates_Schedule_Water_Sewer.pdf https://sfpuc.org/sites/default/files/accounts-and-services/... says ~$10.71/unit, with each unit being 768 gallons, or 2907 litres. (there's a lower rate for the first 4 unit, which I would guess is subsidized). 10.71/2.907=$3.68 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Desalination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis#Desalination
- mannykannot 4y agoIt would be like building highways to relieve suburban traffic.
- selimthegrim 4y agoDo they realize that the Old River Control Structure is stopping the Mississippi from avulsing down the Atchafalaya towards Morgan City? New Orleans won’t have any river water then.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- UIUC_06 4y ago> Parsons said the plan would replenish the upper Missouri and Mississippi Rivers during dry spells, increase hydropower along the Columbia River and stabilize the Great Lakes. He proposed using nuclear explosions to excavate the system's trenches and underground water storage reservoirs. "nuclear explosions"!! Sounds legit.
- gerikson 4y agoSoviet engineers proposed something similar in the 50s/60s to divert rivers flowing north into the Arctic.
- throwaway892238 4y agoYes, let's continue looking for ways to fill a literal desert with water during a period of global warming, that's the ticket.
- aaron695 4y ago
- wwkeyboard 4y agoIf the Boring Company's cost estimates are anywhere near realistic a 1500 mile tunnel isn't too far off the cost range of other big infrastructure projects. (Yes I realize this taken with a heaping spoonful of "what if", there are far better things to spend this money on, unknowable environmental impacts, there is a personality cult around that company, etc.)
- Cupertino95014 4y agoWhenever someone estimates the time for some big project like this, "reviews and permitting and lawsuits" is always the biggest component. That's what scuttled the Huntington Beach desalinization plant. After the Northridge Quake in LA, the Santa Monica Freeway was repaired in less than three months. Given the political will, the procedural roadblocks can be dealt with. [1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-06-mn-42778-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-06-mn-42778-...
- bandyaboot 4y agoThe replacement of the I35 Mississippi River bridge in Minneapolis was also fast tracked pretty well after it collapsed. But, I imagine it’s much easier to fast track an infrastructure repair or replacement project than it is for a brand new infrastructure project.
- pfdietz 4y agoThere's a whole lot of potentially arable land between Louisiana and California that could be irrigated first. This idea makes no sense.
- 6c737133 4y agoWHYYYYYYY is america refusing to invest in, and hasten the adoption of, large scale desalination plants?! you've got immense coastal regions and those big blue oceans on both sides. invest in your future for once.
- aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 4y agoThis reminds me, I’ve been meaning to read The Control of Nature by John McPhee. Has anybody here read it?