National Water Policies

[The Ghostbuster]

Here is a thread for the continuation of the conversation started in the Interstate 11 thread in the Mountain West Board. Have at it!

[kernals12]

Water is heavy and transporting it, especially uphill, is incredibly expensive. There was a whole debate about this in the 60s with NAWAPA. It was a stupid idea then and it's a stupider idea now.

And it's not needed. Did you know that Arizona uses less water now than in 1957? The water consumed by our lawns and long showers utterly pale in comparison to the tremendous amount of water used by agriculture, arguably, as more of the Southwest's farmland gets replaced by urban sprawl, water consumption should drop and in the future once lab grown meat arrives, we'll have a massive surplus of water.

[Max Rockatansky]

Water is heavy and transporting it, especially uphill, is incredibly expensive. There was a whole debate about this in the 60s with NAWAPA. It was a stupid idea then and it's a stupider idea now.

And it's not needed. Did you know that Arizona uses less water now than in 1957? The water consumed by our lawns and long showers utterly pale in comparison to the tremendous amount of water used by agriculture, arguably, as more of the Southwest's farmland gets replaced by urban sprawl, water consumption should drop and in the future once lab grown meat arrives, we'll have a massive surplus of water.

Don't go telling people about that special ingredient in Soylent Green.

[kernals12]

Let's not forget the time the Bureau of Reclamation suggested damming the Grand Canyon

[SP Cook]

water consumption should drop and in the future once lab grown meat arrives, we'll have a massive surplus of water.

When speaking of things that have not yet been invented or made economically practical even if invented, the proper conjunction is "if"  not "when" . 

When making public policy, the use of things that do not exist is quite foolhardy.    Better to base things on what actually is.

[CtrlAltDel]

The water consumed by our lawns and long showers utterly pale in comparison to the tremendous amount of water used by agriculture, arguably, as more of the Southwest's farmland gets replaced by urban sprawl, water consumption should drop and in the future once lab grown meat arrives, we'll have a massive surplus of water.

When speaking of things that have not yet been invented or made economically practical even if invented, the proper conjunction is "if"  not "when" . 

To be fair to kernals12, "when"  is not used in the statement you quoted. 

[hbelkins]

I continue to be surprised at the wrangling over a water source for Atlanta and the controversy surrounding the Tennessee River.

Since navigable streams are considered federal property (more or less, I realize that's an oversimplification), why would a city in Georgia be prohibited from tapping into a water source in a neighboring state?

It's not like there's a shortage of water in that area, as the entire Tennessee River from near the river's mouth in Paducah, Ky., to upstream of Knoxville, Tenn., has been dammed up into a series of lakes to provide hydroelectric power by the TVA.

[CtrlAltDel]

Since navigable streams are considered federal property (more or less, I realize that's an oversimplification), why would a city in Georgia be prohibited from tapping into a water source in a neighboring state?

Federal jurisdiction ends at the water's edge. Tennessee can block the water from crossing its own territory.

[hbelkins]

Since navigable streams are considered federal property (more or less, I realize that's an oversimplification), why would a city in Georgia be prohibited from tapping into a water source in a neighboring state?

Federal jurisdiction ends at the water's edge. Tennessee can block the water from crossing its own territory.

And I don't understand why Tennessee would do that. It makes no sense.

[Plutonic Panda]

If this isn't flat out alarming I don't know what is:

There is also a greater than 1-in-5 chance that water levels in Lake Mead will fall below 1,000 feet above sea level in 2025. That is barely 100 feet above what is considered "dead pool," the level at which water can no longer flow through Hoover Dam.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50247505/theres-a-1-in-3-chance-lake-powell-wont-be-able-to-generate-hydropower-in-2023-due-to-drought-conditions-new-study-says?fbclid=IwAR3q9nJ4A-11UPddVD_dqHmRm6nfJKdYgIuV-EAPa_mEosSA_vk1xS14EFo

[abefroman329]

Since navigable streams are considered federal property (more or less, I realize that's an oversimplification), why would a city in Georgia be prohibited from tapping into a water source in a neighboring state?

Federal jurisdiction ends at the water's edge. Tennessee can block the water from crossing its own territory.

And I don't understand why Tennessee would do that. It makes no sense.

Twenty years ago, it seemed to be a general anti-helping-Atlanta stance - when Bob Barr represented a Congressional district in Northwest Georgia, he was also opposed to it.

[triplemultiplex]

Well this thread started because we got sidetracked in the I-11 thread about harebrained concepts to divert Midwest floods to the desert.  The superficially intriguing concept of taking water from where there is too much of it to where there is too little of it glosses over the simple logistics of this endeavor.  The volume of water that would need to move to have any meaningful effect on a flooding event would be so large that the infrastructure to move that volume of water would cut a gigantic swath through the landscape orders of magnitude larger than any extant aqueduct.

Drive across the Mississippi River at say, St. Louis, during an average discharge volume.  Pretty big already.  Then know that the amount of water moving during a flooding event is going to be dozens of times larger than what you see there on an average day.  So imagine then, a channel several times larger than the Mississippi River slashed across at least 1/3rd of the continent (2/3rd's if one wants to get the Ohio and Tennessee River basins in on this system).  That's how big it would have to be to make any meaningful dent in a bad flood in the Midwest.

So not only does that giant path have to cut across a thousand miles of mostly private land and create a permanent physical barrier to the movement of terrestrial wildlife and people, it's gotta do so UPHILL for most of the journey.

Next problem: sediment.
Floods generate a LOT of sediment.  This sediment is critical to the biogeography of large rivers.  The replenishment of sediment to flood plains and deltas in the Mississippi Basin is essential to keep certain environments above water, including those where humans farm.  The diversions and reservoirs necessary to shunt water west will cause rivers to drop that sediment load above those structures and A. quickly fill in behind them requiring continuous, extensive dredging and B. causing massive erosion downstream from these structures.  Moreover, if we were to pump floodwater up over the continental divide, what's going to happen is that the sediment that comes along in that water is going to drop out in between pumping stations to the point where once it's over the continental divide it will SEVERELY erode it's way down toward the Colorado or whatever.  And with the volumes of water we are talking about, that's the kind of erosion that created the Grand Canyon in a geological blink.

Next problem: invasive species.
Start filling Lake Mead with Mississppi River water and I guarantee you boaters will be getting clobbered with those goddamn Asian Carp in no time.  The introduction of Mississippi Basin native and introduced species to the Colorado will result in a profound extinction of indigenous species in that system.  Not just fish.  Everything from mussels to plants and, yes, popular game fish.  That's bad.

Furthermore, all of the control structures necessary to divert Mississippi basin waters westward create plethora of new physical barriers to fish passage.  Species that depend on moving up and down a free-flowing river will dwindle and eventually go away.

The last point I want to discuss is more philosophical.  I have a real problem with the idea going through all this effort to divert Midwest water to a desert west.  Why should we subsidize the unsustainable growth of desert megacities when it's only getting hotter and hotter?  If you want our water, come move on back to the Midwest!  We've got plenty of water for your goddam lawns and goddamn golf courses and goddamn solar panel factories.  Bring your jobs and tax dollars to Ohio and Michigan and Illinois and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and so on; drink deeply from ample water direct from the source!

Oh no, we have winter!  Boo hoo.  That's what gives us the water, dummies! The snow piles up and melts slowly to recharge aquifers every winter where our natural filtration system of bedrock and glacial till turns into potable water with zero energy expended by humans.  The Great Lakes in particular; if you want that water, then come live here.  It's not that hard!

Always remember that the Soviet Union destroyed the fourth largest lake IN THE WORLD by diverting its water toward unsustainable growth.  California destroyed its largest natural lake (Tulare Lake) by diverting its water toward unsustainable growth. And California created (and then destroyed) its current largest lake attempting to sustain unsustainable growth.   (Referring to the Salton Sea here.)
With that kind of track record, why the hell would us Midwesterners ever get on board with such a socio-environmental boondoggle?  You want the water, come here.  It's that simple.  Screw Vegas; screw Phoenix; screw Los Angeles; screw Denver.  You're not getting our fucking water.
I might not have gone on this rant, but I recently heard Bill Maher shoot his mouth off about this dumb water grid idea so it's at the front of my mind.

[SectorZ]

Well this thread started because we got sidetracked in the I-11 thread about harebrained concepts to divert Midwest floods to the desert.  The superficially intriguing concept of taking water from where there is too much of it to where there is too little of it glosses over the simple logistics of this endeavor.  The volume of water that would need to move to have any meaningful effect on a flooding event would be so large that the infrastructure to move that volume of water would cut a gigantic swath through the landscape orders of magnitude larger than any extant aqueduct.

Drive across the Mississippi River at say, St. Louis, during an average discharge volume.  Pretty big already.  Then know that the amount of water moving during a flooding event is going to be dozens of times larger than what you see there on an average day.  So imagine then, a channel several times larger than the Mississippi River slashed across at least 1/3rd of the continent (2/3rd's if one wants to get the Ohio and Tennessee River basins in on this system).  That's how big it would have to be to make any meaningful dent in a bad flood in the Midwest.

So not only does that giant path have to cut across a thousand miles of mostly private land and create a permanent physical barrier to the movement of terrestrial wildlife and people, it's gotta do so UPHILL for most of the journey.

Next problem: sediment.
Floods generate a LOT of sediment.  This sediment is critical to the biogeography of large rivers.  The replenishment of sediment to flood plains and deltas in the Mississippi Basin is essential to keep certain environments above water, including those where humans farm.  The diversions and reservoirs necessary to shunt water west will cause rivers to drop that sediment load above those structures and A. quickly fill in behind them requiring continuous, extensive dredging and B. causing massive erosion downstream from these structures.  Moreover, if we were to pump floodwater up over the continental divide, what's going to happen is that the sediment that comes along in that water is going to drop out in between pumping stations to the point where once it's over the continental divide it will SEVERELY erode it's way down toward the Colorado or whatever.  And with the volumes of water we are talking about, that's the kind of erosion that created the Grand Canyon in a geological blink.

Next problem: invasive species.
Start filling Lake Mead with Mississppi River water and I guarantee you boaters will be getting clobbered with those goddamn Asian Carp in no time.  The introduction of Mississippi Basin native and introduced species to the Colorado will result in a profound extinction of indigenous species in that system.  Not just fish.  Everything from mussels to plants and, yes, popular game fish.  That's bad.

Furthermore, all of the control structures necessary to divert Mississippi basin waters westward create plethora of new physical barriers to fish passage.  Species that depend on moving up and down a free-flowing river will dwindle and eventually go away.

The last point I want to discuss is more philosophical.  I have a real problem with the idea going through all this effort to divert Midwest water to a desert west.  Why should we subsidize the unsustainable growth of desert megacities when it's only getting hotter and hotter?  If you want our water, come move on back to the Midwest!  We've got plenty of water for your goddam lawns and goddamn golf courses and goddamn solar panel factories.  Bring your jobs and tax dollars to Ohio and Michigan and Illinois and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and so on; drink deeply from ample water direct from the source!

Oh no, we have winter!  Boo hoo.  That's what gives us the water, dummies! The snow piles up and melts slowly to recharge aquifers every winter where our natural filtration system of bedrock and glacial till turns into potable water with zero energy expended by humans.  The Great Lakes in particular; if you want that water, then come live here.  It's not that hard!

Always remember that the Soviet Union destroyed the fourth largest lake IN THE WORLD by diverting its water toward unsustainable growth.  California destroyed its largest natural lake (Tulare Lake) by diverting its water toward unsustainable growth. And California created (and then destroyed) its current largest lake attempting to sustain unsustainable growth.   (Referring to the Salton Sea here.)
With that kind of track record, why the hell would us Midwesterners ever get on board with such a socio-environmental boondoggle?  You want the water, come here.  It's that simple.  Screw Vegas; screw Phoenix; screw Los Angeles; screw Denver.  You're not getting our fucking water.
I might not have gone on this rant, but I recently heard Bill Maher shoot his mouth off about this dumb water grid idea so it's at the front of my mind.

Excellent synopsis of the problem. I agree that others in the USA should not have to give up precious water because people willingly move to places where there are none.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

But desalination plants are the solution. Building an artificial river from the Mississippi doesn't seem to be it. If we were to do that why not draw from the Great Lakes? I've read water levels are rising there.

[US 89]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

But desalination plants are the solution. Building an artificial river from the Mississippi doesn't seem to be it. If we were to do that why not draw from the Great Lakes? I've read water levels are rising there.

Beyond the immense logistical difficulties and reasons this will not happen... one word.

Canada.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

But desalination plants are the solution. Building an artificial river from the Mississippi doesn't seem to be it. If we were to do that why not draw from the Great Lakes? I've read water levels are rising there.

Beyond the immense logistical difficulties and reasons this will not happen... one word.

Canada.

Not just Canada. The US Great Lakes states also signed legal agreements (namely the Great Lakes Compact) largely aimed at keeping Western states out of the Great Lakes.

To give an idea of the legal hassles this would create for someone trying to draw water across thousands of miles, Waukesha, WI applied to switch its water source to Lake Michigan. Because the city is still not in the Lake Michigan watershed, it took three years just to get that approved, and they're already in the Milwaukee metro area.

[triplemultiplex]

If we were to do that why not draw from the Great Lakes? I've read water levels are rising there.

Only because there were a few wet years in a row in the late teens.  There's a long lag between wet years and water levels in the lakes, particularly Michigan/Huron.  Fluctuations in the levels on the Great Lakes are minor relative to the volume of these lakes.  The difference between high and low is barely over 2 meters.
Lake Michigan as an example:

After this last year, those levels will start coming back down soon.

I am really thankful there exists the Great Lakes Compact wherein any diversion of Great Lakes water out of the basin MUST be approved by all 8 states that border the lakes AND Ontario.  That way Canada can be a sanity check on bad American ideas about what to do with Great Lakes water.
Waukesha County, Wisconsin, had to jump through immense hoops to tap Lake Michigan water once they started depleting their aquifers in the early 00's.  And frankly I wish they had been denied access.  The compromise of piping treated sewage back over the divide still subsidizes the unsustainable growth of a place with mostly rich people that doesn't sit well with me.  Plus the symbolism of rich folks pumping their 'turds' toward poor folks is profound.  (Mostly Racine in this case since the pipes dump out into the Root River.)

[TheHighwayMan3561]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

Well, many of us up here also like living in the Great Lakes region, so what about our feelings?

[Max Rockatansky]

I'm just amused at this point poor ole Tulare Lake got a mention in this thread.  I do enjoy telling people they are on the bottom of a lake bed when they ask why we have an emergency action plan for flooding.  I'm even more amused when farmers put up signs asking for more dams like there is some great untapped source of water in the Sierra Nevada Mountains not already in use.

[Plutonic Panda]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

Well, many of us up here also like living in the Great Lakes region, so what about our feelings?

How will it affect you? The Great Lakes are actually having issues with water level rise.

[Plutonic Panda]

But the Great Lakes idea was more tongue in cheek my main proposal is desalination

[Duke87]

The "divert the Great Lakes" idea is logistically silly aside from politically impossible, come up with by some people who look at a map and go "ooh lots of water here" without thinking through the details.

If, in theory, you were to develop a megaproject to move water into the Colorado River from east of the continental divide... there's no reason to go all the way to the Great Lakes. The Missouri River has spare water and is a lot closer (and would require less pumping since you could find a higher intake point).

Before we even go there, though, let's consider something else: part of the reason the Colorado River basin has these problems is because we're already diverting a ton of water out of it. About half of Metro Denver's water comes from west of the continental divide, and therefore out of the Colorado and dumped into the Platte (and henceforth the Missouri and Mississippi). A bit further west, water is diverted out of the Gunnison (and therefore the Colorado) into the upper Rio Grande basin for irrigation. And over in Utah, Metro Salt Lake City is taking water out some tributaries of the Green River (and therefore the Colorado) and dumping it in the Salt Lake basin.

So while we're fussing over ways to add more water to the Colorado... how about we stop taking water out of it first!

[vdeane]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

Well, many of us up here also like living in the Great Lakes region, so what about our feelings?

How will it affect you? The Great Lakes are actually having issues with water level rise.

No, they aren't.  There were a couple high years (2017 and 2019), but otherwise there is no such issue.  In fact, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River have actually been LOW the past couple years, to the point that Dad damaged the prop of the boat going in/out of Chippewa Bay.  Twice.  In one ride.  The second time damaging the engine and causing an oil leak.  And due to parts shortages, the boat is still not fixed, even though it's been over a month now.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

^^^ well many people like living in the desert so that logic by itself doesn't hold up.

Well, many of us up here also like living in the Great Lakes region, so what about our feelings?

How will it affect you? The Great Lakes are actually having issues with water level rise.

I don't know, the aesthetics of a bunch of pipelines taking water away from us to places thousands of miles away that they won't be giving back? Is that reason enough?

[kkt]

If people like living in the desert, they need to like or at least tolerate the results of living in the desert:  no lawns or gardens that require irrigation, no golf courses, no car washing, tightly regulated water use as far as length of showers and size of toilet tanks, possibly widespread use of grey water systems.

Desalinization is not a good idea on this scale.  It takes a huge amount of energy.  Just imagine if all the water you use in your house for all purposes had to be boiled to steam first.  That energy use will be contributing greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere.

People need to pick places to live that have water already, and state and local governments need to cut off water hookups for new construction in places where more development is unsustainable.