Proponents of these projects argue that they could stabilize western cities for decades to come, connecting populations with unclaimed water rights. The water will drain into the headwaters of the Colorado river. Column: Building a pipeline to the Mississippi? An idea as harebrained As an engineer, I can guarantee you that it is doable, Viadero said. Los Angeles-area water districts have implemented much of what Famiglietti mentioned. One benefit would be flood control for the Eastern USA . The pipeline would provide the Colorado River basin with 600,000 acre-feet of water annually, which could serve roughly a million single-family homes. To be talking about pipe dreams, when thats not even feasible for decades, if at all Its a disservice, Scanlan said. It's the lowest level since the lake was filled in the. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation. 10/4/2021. If we had a big pipeline from Lake Sakakawea, we wouldn't just dump it into Lake Powell. Pipeline sizes vary from the 2-inch- (5-centimetre-) diameter lines used in oil-well gathering systems to lines 30 feet (9 metres) across in high-volume water and sewage networks. This summer, as seven states and Mexico push to meet a Tuesday deadline to agree on plans to shore up the Colorado River and itsshrivelingreservoirs, retired engineer Don Siefkes of San Leandro, California,wrote a letter to The Desert Sun with what he said was asolution to the West's water woes: build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure to Lake Powell, 1,489 miles west, to refill the Colorado River system with Mississippi River water. But, as water scarcity in the West gets more desperate, the hurdles could be overcome one day. "The desalinationplant Arizona has scoped out would be by far the largest ever in North America,"said Jennifer Pitt, National Audubon Society's Colorado River program director. "I don't think that drought, especially in the era of climate change, is something we can engineer our way out of.". of Engineers has turned back official requests for more water from the Missouri River to alleviate shortages on the Mississippi. As part of our commitment to sustainability, in 2021 Grist moved its office headquarters to the Bullitt Center in Seattles vibrant Capitol Hill neighborhood. Booming Utah metro wants to pipe in water from Lake Powell so it can The conceptsfell into a few large categories: pipe Mississippi or Missouri River water to the eastern sideof the Rockies or to Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, bring icebergs in bags, on container ships or via trucks to Southern California, pump water from the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest to California via a subterranean pipeline on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, or replenish the headwaters of the Green River, the main stem of the Colorado River, with water from tributaries.