If oil pipelines can be run all over the country, why not water pipelines?

[shraby]

Pipe the excess water from storms that lead to heavy flooding from the east to the western part of the country where that water will do some good. The cost would probably not equal the cost of the losses in areas where flooding happens often to warrant giving it a go.

[FSogol]

1. No thanks. We need our water here on the east coast.

[Orrex]

7. Yes, and...

If they took water from the east, they would simply use it for west-coast fracking anyway.

[FSogol]

9. and watering grass lawns in Phoenix.

[Orrex]

10. And golf courses.

[former9thward]

15. Far more grass lawns are watered in LA than Phoenix.

Desert landscaping is very popular here. Not so much in SoCal.

[FSogol]

16. As water becomes scarce, lawns are going to have to disappear.

American's fascination with big lawns comes from the lawns in Oxford, England where they get twice as much rainfall as most of the US. The love affair with lawns is still codified in some sort of Eisenhower-ish morality play about manhood even in my area which is heavily wooded. There are some old coggers that spend 8 hours a day babying their lawns in my neighborhood.

[former9thward]

17. I agree with you.

When I was living in a house dealing with the lawn was a pain but I felt I had to do it as a 'good neighbor'. Where I live now has desert landscaping and not a single thing needs be done and it looks great.

[LiberalEsto]

2. Not enough profits in it, I suppose nt

[PoliticAverse]

3. You might find this of interest...

http://www.nrdc.org/water/management/pipelines-project.asp

[shraby]

4. That's what I'm talking about. A couple years ago they had to

flood an area because the dam would have burst or overflowed. It was a "controlled" flood? Places they know will flood from time to time are places that the water can be diverted into a pipeline instead of opening the flood gates and causing much damage to homes and property.

[pinto]

5. Thanks for the NRDC link.

I live in an area of CA served by a regional pipe line among other sources.

[Orrex]

6. Do you seriously want to risk a water pipeline rupture?

Such a catastrophe might temporarily moisten ten square acres!

[Sinistrous]

8. I've entertained a similar pipe dream for years.

[Journeyman]

11. Marc Reisner: "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water". . .

will provide many of the answers to your unstated questions. It's not as simple as you pose.

Reisner's seminal 1986 work is a good source for a comprehensive overview of the problem. Pay particular attention to the section on NAWAPA, the North American Water and Power Alliance. Better yet, here's a quick read on the plan and its myriad troubles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance

You may also wish to read up on the California Bay-Delta Diversion Project, especially the Environmental Impact assessments, the politics involved, and the tremendous expense and energy required for both the initial construction and the continuing State Water Project operations, in order to see -- in microcosm -- the extraordinary challenges a cross-country water diversion project would engender.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/09/5986905/delta-water-tunnel-plan-presents.html

And here's a good rule of thumb: Water engineers create as many problems as they solve (if not more).

[Maedhros]

12. When I was studying in Canada, there was a plan put forth by some Californian engineer

to divert water from the mouth of the Mackenzie River by piping it to Southern California. The idea was that the water of the Mackenzie River was being "wasted" by letting it flow into the Arctic Ocean.

The big problem is that diverting the water would drastically alter the ecosystem around the mouth of the river, especially the salinity, which would endanger numerous species.

Not a good plan.

[shraby]

13. I wouldn't be in favor of that either. What I'm talking about is not a

day to day diversion but an emergency diversion in case of huge rainstorms that will make the rivers overflow, snow runoff such as they had in the Dakotas a few years ago, etc.
Many instances it tends to be the same places that run into trouble. As I was growing up, the Ohio River did it's thing every few years and flooded large areas of land and people.
A pipe line is expensive, but still can't compare to the cost of the damage done by floods.

[Maedhros]

18. Even though those flooding events seem catastrophic and anomalous to we humans,

they are a factor in the development of the local ecosystems. By diverting what we perceive as excess water, we may be altering the ecosystem in ways we don't realize.

[Travis_0004]

21. I think the cost would be outrageously expensive.

First, water costs more to pump than oil through a pipeline, and to control flooding, you would need huge pipes. Keystone XL was supposed to cost 5.7 billion. It was 36" diamater pipe. Lets assume that 36" is big enough to stop a flood (I don't think it would be anywhere close to big enough). If we were to run a pipe starting with cincinnati, and run it out west, under this example, we would spend 5 billion dollars. The last flood (in 1997) did 180 million dollars in damage. Cincinnati probably has a major flood every 30 years or so. If each flood did 200 million in damage, the pipeline would pay for itself in 750 years. And that is ignoring maintenance costs, and the fact that 36" pipe would not stop a flood. I realize one pipeline could host multiple cities along the way, but I still don't think it would work out.

The fact is rivers flood. A better idea would be to not build along river banks, or to build a building to survive a flood.

[snooper2]

14. We had this discussion before, it won't work East-to-West, has to be North-to-South

Every roofer and plumber (and the general public I would hope) know that water runs downhill...


Jeez

[closeupready]

19. If the US were Rome, we'd have aqueducts all over the place.

They'd be low maintenance, AND they'd be pretty to look at.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

20. Heck, the Romans did this a long time ago!