Headline: Should We Divert The Mississippi To The Colorado? (Hint: Don’t Ask Captain Kirk)

In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Residence, Captain Kirk and Spock journey again in time to seek out a few extinct humpback whales — the one beings that may talk with an alien probe that has evaporated Earth’s oceans and eradicated the ambiance, upending fashionable life.

It’s absolutely a fantastical story. But, as components of america are being overtaken by the long-mounting inevitability of water shortages, some somewhat far-fetched concepts are being thrown round to assist clear up our nation’s rising freshwater disaster.

Everybody has ideas — even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner. In 2015, Shatner instructed beginning a Kickstarter marketing campaign to lift $30 billion to construct a pipeline to hold water from wet Seattle, Washington to Lake Mead in Nevada to provide thirsty communities in California.

Immediately, as Lake Mead reaches breathtakingly low ranges, revealing the whole lot from drowned pure wonders and useless our bodies to the tangle of messy guidelines and agreements that govern how the reservoir’s water is used, the wild concepts for fixing water shortage within the US West are flying. Like this Desert Solar reader who needs to construct a canal from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River — which in america would take a long time, value trillions and would possibly by no means get approval.

Diverting the Mississippi west — or any “quick-fix” diversion schemes like Shatner’s — are actually dangerous concepts for one more motive: Like widening highways to get rid of site visitors jams, they only create extra of the issue (on this case, unsustainable development and demand outstripping water provide) they had been designed to resolve.

What’s Flawed with Diverting the Mississippi, Anyway?

Some argue that China has already constructed an identical diversion venture — the South-to-North Water Diversion Challenge — with the final word purpose of transferring almost 45 billion cubic meters of water yearly from the Yangtze River in China’s south to Beijing and different extra arid areas within the nation’s north, together with 4 of the nation’s 5 largest farming provinces.

After all, China is a quasi-privatized authorities that may get issues achieved rapidly (together with displacing 300,000+ folks in the best way of the venture), whereas the politics of doing a diversion canal of comparable scale in america could be past thorny. And, as The Economist identified in 2018, the venture “has not solved water shortages in Beijing…at greatest, it buys slightly time by which to get water insurance policies proper.”

Switch canals between basins – just like the South-to-North Water Diversion Challenge or like all canal between the Mississippi and the Colorado (or Seattle and Lake Mead) – introduce quite a few challenges along with simply getting them constructed. These are lengthy canals, for starters. Fracking-induced earthquakes may break them. Terrorism may blow them up. Oil or chemical spills may pollute them. The checklist of potential calamities is lengthy; the chances of any considered one of them occurring finally fairly quick.

In New Orleans final September, Hurricane Ida precipitated catastrophic injury to the facility grid as a result of a single level failed in excessive winds. Energy was out for 3 weeks, which was devastating for some companies and a significant inconvenience for tens of 1000’s. However a farm with out water for 3 weeks is the top of the farm. Water networks have to be diversified. Making half the nation basically depending on a single supply of water is the definition of fragility.

A fair greater difficulty: Water fuels development, and that development would in flip gobble up the “new” water, spurring the necessity for much more water. Any area depending on a diversion pipeline could be locked into an cycle of ratcheted water/development that may deepen our dependencies on unsustainable single sources. We’re kicking the can down the highway as a substitute of specializing in high quality development, not amount, and artistic options that reckon with a way forward for local weather extremes.

The Larger Drawback with Fast Repair Concepts Like Diversion

Make no mistake — these are unprecedented instances and we have to broaden our serious about environmental challenges. I’ve studied and promoted numerous approaches that push the boundaries of present pondering, equivalent to storing floodwaters in aquifers as a option to sport the drought/flood extremes that local weather change is bringing. I’ve additionally written about utilizing wastewater to create hydrogen to fulfill the rising demand for inexperienced power within the coming a long time. And we additionally must take a tough have a look at rising irrigation effectivity and incentivizing that effectivity on farms – as a result of the results of water shortage will hit farms, not cities.

However the distinction between these sorts of ideas and prolonged water pipelines or different random concepts is that they’re new concepts, not simply making use of an previous strategy on an even bigger scale out of desperation. They use what we now have already in new methods with out considerably disrupting nature, economies or communities.

We don’t have time to mistake implausible schemes for innovation, a lot much less sustainability. If a “answer” to an issue comes with an astronomical price ticket; causes numerous environmental, social and cultural conflicts; and stands to create extra hurt than good, is it actually revolutionary?

As a freshwater scientist, I see a sensible path to securing a way forward for abundance for water. Touring that real looking path forces us to think about, examine and implement sensible options and practices that prioritize conservation, coordinated administration and (maybe most significantly) a way of collective duty and profit.

This downside is pressing: Water is a necessity for all times. We will’t divert our option to abundance. The reply is to not wrest what you need out of your neighbor. So let’s ignore diversion schemes (and doomsday eventualities) in favor of sustainable methods that depend on creativity, improve fairness and contemplate the lengthy sport. That’s the best way to reside lengthy and prosper.