Why can’t the West just pipe in water from the Mississippi or Missouri rivers to save the Colorado River?

This story is one a part of a broader collection about methods to avoid wasting water from the drying Colorado River. See the total mission right here.

Engineers and water specialists knew for many years that progress within the Colorado River Basin would finally hit a tipping level. That’s, until the states relying on the river discovered a brand new supply of water.

A technique to do this, civil engineer Royce J. Tipton wrote in 1965, can be to pipe water in from some place else, additionally known as “importing” water. One scheme thought of within the 50s and 60s (however by no means developed), the North American Water and Energy Alliance, proposed to pipe water from rivers in Alaska and Canada south into the Colorado River’s headwaters, amongst different locations.

Water transfers like this are already in use the world over and have been for millennia (consider the Roman aqueducts). An instance within the Colorado River Basin can be the Central Arizona Mission, a canal system transporting river water throughout a whole bunch of miles of desert and into the guts of Arizona for cities like Phoenix and Tucson.

The Southern Supply System within the close by Arkansas River Basin pipes water from Pueblo County greater than 60 miles north to Colorado Springs, Fountain and Safety.

These canals and pipelines are costly to construct, although, and take years. The Southern Supply System, for instance, value an estimated $985 million and took about 4 years to construct (the planning section took for much longer than that). And through development, the method grew to become mired in native and federal allowing processes.

A decade in the past, states within the Colorado River Basin wrapped up a three-year research, which thought of piping water to Denver – and past – from the Missouri River. Then- U.S. Inside Secretary Ken Salazar dismissed the thought as politically and technically infeasible.

“At one time they talked about hauling icebergs down from Alaska,” Jennifer Gimbel, senior water coverage scholar at Colorado State College’s Water Heart, mentioned.

Piping water from the Midwest and up a vertical mile would current an engineering problem to say the least, Beard mentioned. However except for that, working with non-public, native, state and federal landowners would spark many years of litigation and allowing processes.

“It shouldn’t even be into account,” Dan Beard, former U.S. Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, mentioned.

Gary Wockner, head of the nonprofit Save the Colorado, was much less involved in regards to the technical prospects and extra involved about one dry area taking water from one other place.

“You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Wockner mentioned.

To not point out within the Midwest, the Missouri and Mississippi rivers are experiencing droughts of their very own, as have the Columbia, Klamath and Snake rivers within the Pacific Northwest.

Or there are authorized protections in place that may forestall states within the Colorado River Basin from wanting elsewhere. Like with the Nice Lakes, which maintain an estimated 90% of North America’s contemporary floor water, a 2008 compact prohibits communities from even making use of to divert water until they’re no less than partially inside the basin.

“It’d be a political warfare wherever you took the water from, for certain,” Wockner mentioned.