Regarding proposals to bring lower Mississippi river water west to Colorado and beyond:
I'm seeing a number of letters to the editor and opinions expressing interest in this sort of proposal. I'm not sure quite who has suggested it first or championed it, but it does seem interesting. On the one hand, the big water engineering projects of the 20th century, along with a total failure to address the tragedy of the commons, a failure to build externalities pricing into the product, and other short-sightedness.... on the one hand, these projects arguably contributed to some of the severe environmental issues we see. On the other hand, they arguably have helped in some big ways. So, this point/counterpoint gives me pause as I contemplate this big-water-project proposal.
An example of one letter:
Moving water from the Mississippi River to west would require massive and expensive pumps
Julie Makinen, Palm Springs Desert Sun
July 7, 2022·2 min read
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1 comment
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Building large pumps is off-the-shelf technology. They cost more than rain, but if you don't have rain, what choice do you have?
racocn8
Level 9
Aug 14, 2022
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kmaz:
You mention there not being rain, but it is not as black and white as that. There is rain, but there is not enough any more to replenish, particularly in light of the brazen over-use of saved water by large states and regions unwilling to address conservation needs.
Some of the very best environmental thinking and activism I've seen is in and around rainwater harvesting. It's possible that a way to structure a deal around building a large (extremely energy-consuming) project to bring water west should include extremely clear language and legal agreements around requirements that participating states (if they want water from the project):
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be required to get out of the way of rainwater harvesting efforts, including removing unreasonable regulations which may stand in the way of individual/residential harvesting.
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address the grossly disrespectful over-use of water (there it is again - the tragedy of the commons) in some cases such as when agricultural users may plant water-intensive crops in areas where it is not suitable, or may not be billed enough for the water to provide them with an incentive to conserve more of it.
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? possible major revisions to state allocations.? dunno.
When California was victimized by Enron's natural gas manipulations, then Governor Grey Davis tasked experts to report on measures to avoid similar fiascos. California was at the end of two NG pipelines where upstream states retained dibs. Among the measures were 1) building another pipeline and 2) purchasing costly futures contracts. The GQP seized on the latter despite it being merely the enactment of the best available advice. The GQP used this issue to unseat Davis and replace him with Schwarzenegger.
Another cautionary tale is how San Francisco built the Hetch Hetchy dam in the next valley up from Yosemite. Yes, the dam submerged some of the valley, but at the same time, the impassible reservoir protected the upstream valley from millions of visitors that would have impacted Yosemite Valley. Thus, the upstream Hetch Hetchy Valley is nearly unspoiled. That hasn't stopped so-called environmentalists from continuing to petition for the destruction of the dam.
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