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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExclusive: William Shatner’s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/exclusive-william-shatners-30-billion-116672789084.htmlCalifornias in the midst of a 4-year-old drought, he said. They tell us theres a years supply of water left. If it doesnt rain next year, what do 20 million people in the breadbasket of the world do? In a place thats the fifth-largest GDP if California were a country, itd be fifth in line were about to be arid! What do you do about it?
Heres the plan:
So Im starting a Kickstarter campaign. I want $30 billion to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say, from Seattle a place where theres a lot of water. Theres too much water. How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it aboveground because if it leaks, youre irrigating!
And where would this water pipeline go?
Bring it down here and fill one of our lakes! Lake Mead!
I was a little skeptical. It didnt sound doable. The political hassles, the fights with local towns, the environmental impact
No, its simple, Shatner replied. They did it in Alaska why cant they do it along Highway 5? This whole areas about to go under!
Shatner conceded that even if hes not able to raise the money, the effort will at least raise consciousness about the severity of Californias drought.
If I dont make 30 billion, Ill give the money to a politician who says, Ill build it. Obviously, its to raise awareness that something more than just closing your tap so why not a pipeline?
~~~~~
There's a little more at the link.
I like Mr. Shatner because he hasn't been afraid to try things.
Never thought he was a great actor, but he wasn't/isn't bad and as he got more mature I think he got a little better.
He just seems like a likeable guy.
Also, this made me laugh, " How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it aboveground because if it leaks, youre irrigating!
Didn't know he was 85 though. He looks good.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)One that needs serious consideration. I wonder how long it would take to build such a pipeline, if all due haste were put on its construction?
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)At least it's an idea.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)up this way too, from lack of snowfall in the mountains -- a dry winter and a dry spring.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)The other options are atmospheric fog catchers and desalination plants, two vastly different technologies.
There's an additional issue at play,
Published: April 12, 2015
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Source: Global Research
A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new water barons the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.
Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kongs Li Ka-shing, Philippines Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.
more...
Thus, "we have no water" can be truth or possibly negotiation strategy.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)former9thward
(32,082 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)Building and maintaining such a pipeline would provide long term jobs for thousand of people, save millions in livestock, crop and property loss, not to mention human suffering.
The state climatologist for Texas says the record drought of 2011 could be only the beginning of a dry spell that could last until 2020. What if this drought affects the entire Southwest and Western US?
There is an urgent need to conduct water from states suffering flooding from too much rain or snow melt to provide water to states suffering drought causing losses of entire farms, crops, and farm animals and to provide jobs to build these pipelines.
We could develop a network of interstate high-volume water pipe-lines, so water could be transmitted from areas that have too much (recently the Northeast) to areas of drought. They could be installed with relatively little disruption by flowing the right-of-ways of various Interstate Highways and/or rail lines.
Since water is non-toxic, occasional small leaks would not damage the environment. To install the system would create much-needed jobs in the US. The system could be built gradually over years to spread out the cost and job-supply. Pipe-line flow could be reversed if climate changes dictate.
Building and maintaining this pipeline would provide long term jobs for thousand of people, save millions in livestock, crop and property loss, not to mention human suffering.
Sign the petition.
former9thward
(32,082 posts)only a couple dozen "real" jobs would be created by the Keystone pipeline. It can't be that Keystone would only create a couple dozen "real" jobs and this pipeline would create thousands. Can't have it both ways.
trumad
(41,692 posts)The other kills life.
former9thward
(32,082 posts)It either will or won't. Why are you changing the subject?
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)North is higher than south, lol!
"Water runs uphill, to money" - Anonymous, quoted by Marc Reisner.
Personally I'm all for giving this a shot - whether people like it or not the American southwest contains a substantial percent of the country's population.
For anyone who says 'then move', ask yourself how you feel about millions of emigrants from California and Nevada and Arizona arriving in your town with no money, taxing your resources, taking up space so that your farmlands and garden space and forests decrease.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Frisco and Plano are building homes like hotcakes, good for our local economy!
Our water reservoirs are up anther 1% just in the last week
been raining and raining for the past couple months-
Monitored Water Supply Reservoirs are 71.4% full on 2015-04-21
packman
(16,296 posts)BUT - I can't do the math.
How long would a 4 foot pipe pumping water 24/7 take to fill something like Lake Mead? OR - is the rate of evaporation going to be greater than the ability to fill such a lake?
I'm sure Spock and Scotty could have figured it out - wherever they are.
bluedigger
(17,087 posts)Too many unknowns to do more than guess, but I doubt evaporation would be significant in an enclosed pipeline. The biggest obstacle to filling the reservoir would probably be stopping whatever agency has claims to draw water from it from doing so before it filled up.
packman
(16,296 posts)But , the evaporation in the lake. In other words, would a large surface lake have more evap than a pipe could compensate for. Guess it makes a case for underground storage of some kind.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)gives a flow rate... but it is an assumption.
sP
onehandle
(51,122 posts)The NRAGOPteahadists won.
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)As long as reTHUGliCONS keep on with their obstructionism and fear-mongering, don't see much getting done in the future.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Water projects allowed growth where it should never and could never have occurred so this is like putting out a fire with gasoline.
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)And the thinking that they could always get the water from somewhere.
So many places in the west that are using water like fresh, unpolluted water will always be there in abundance.
Not to worry though, the planets cooling down so the colder winters will provide more snow.
All, we have to do is not use the phrases "global warming" or "climate change" and everything will be juuuust fine.
Nobody wants to hear that building giant cities and having giant agri-business in the desert is a dumb idea.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)you get a flow rate of roughly 40million gallons per hour... sounds like a lot... not really, though. Lake Lanier in north Georgia had an outflow of 67million gallons per hour yesterday. That is one moderately sized lake in a state with a fraction of California's population.
a pipeline won't cut it.
sP
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)It's not like that state is hurting for cash...Apple probably spends $30 billion on their starbucks budget...
Pathwalker
(6,599 posts)The International treaty known as the Great Lakes Compact says so.
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)Ohio needs that water to grow algae in Lake Erie...
And to drink after they poison our groundwater with fracking fluid.
Pathwalker
(6,599 posts)Besides, a war with Canada would be fun, eh?
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)Pathwalker
(6,599 posts)And we talk fast too, especially in winter.
bearssoapbox
(1,408 posts)I was born in Rapid City, SD and family moved to Ohio in 1964, I was 9ysr. old, so I have a more midwestern accent and speech.
Sometimes when visiting or talking on the phone it can be hard of follow them at times.
When we first moved to Ohio we lived in Dayton and I was given extra English and speech lessons. I thought their was something wrong with the people down here because they talked funny and slow.
What surprised me was how 'warm' the winters were and why so many complained about the COLD?
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)If water were oil, they would find a way to pipe it.
Retrograde
(10,159 posts)Has he cut down use over the past couple of years, or is he one of the ultra-rich who think they can avoid the problem by paying higher rates?
IDemo
(16,926 posts)5:07 p.m. PDT March 14, 2015
SEATTLE With Washington state snowpacks at record-low levels, Governor Jay Inslee has declared a drought emergency for three regions of the state.
The emergency covers the watersheds on the Olympic Peninsula, the east side of the central Cascades and the Walla Walla region.
The state says the snowpack is 7% of normal in the Olympics. It's between 8% and 45% of normal in the Cascades and about 67 percent around Walla Walla. More than half of the state's watersheds are expected to receive less than 75 percent of their normal water supplies.Because most of the precipitation has fallen as rain this winter, there is not enough snow to slowly feed the state's rivers this summer.
"Snowpack is at record lows, and we have farms, vital agricultural regions, communities and fish that are going to need our support," said Inslee in a statement.
I think it comes down to California believing its politicians have enough power to tap other regions regardless of the actual science or the political pushback.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)have "too much water".
idiot.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(108,234 posts)I was going to point that out. Apparently Shatner doesn't understand we have our own water problems up here.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)than places with adequate water resources.
At least according to this article which is from 2010.
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/the-price-of-water-a-comparison-of-water-rates-usage-in-30-u-s-cities/
Granted the article is dated and doesn't reflect Californians response to the drought, but it raises the question of whether a technically feasible project transporting water from Alaska or British Columbia, or Washington or Oregon could provide water at a price point that would let California be anything like pre-drought California.
And if it can't be, maybe the costs of relocating the people to places that have water to spare at good price points is economically more realistic. There are cities in places east of California that have water and could use people.
Faux pas
(14,691 posts)water flush out to the Pacific, they might have water of their own. Los Angeles already stole water from Owen's Valley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars and now they want to steal it from other states? It's NOT everybody else's problem.
Just my humble opinion.
hunter
(38,328 posts)... when great plans to divert water from the Columbia River, and even all the way north to Alaska, to irrigate Western deserts still seemed "practical."
It would have been an environmental catastrophe at the very least. Experiences elsewhere in the world with such projects, in the Soviet Union, China, and the U.S.A., have proven the folly of these projects over and over again. We killed the Colorado River, and there were even plans to build dams in the Grand Canyon. China killed the Yangtze River. The Soviet Union killed the Aral Sea.
Imagine these projects, built with "atoms for peace" hydrogen bombs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance
It would not have made the world a better place.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)corkhead
(6,119 posts)Spending that money on developing desalinization technology would be my choice
Trillo
(9,154 posts)Water is also overhead, in the atmosphere. As the earth and its air warms, there will be more moisture in the air as a result of increased evaporation.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Trillo
(9,154 posts)If we keep building nuclear plants, one day we'll have fusion. It's essentially a non-sequitur.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)on earth.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)the water cycle makes it so... as long as the water doesn't leave earth, it eventually ends up in a body of water somewhere...
sP
closeupready
(29,503 posts)New York's supply is pretty good. If you wanted to buy it from us, I'm sure we'd be willing to sell our surplus, lol.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)water in the ocean... not who had a surplus or who was willing to sell or anything else... right now we have an over-abundance in northern GA... but we were in the same drought conditions that CA is NOW in about seven years ago. i wish we would do something now, when we're in plenty, to prepare for the next drought that will come.
sP
closeupready
(29,503 posts)More seriously, I do reject the idea that California is entitled to fresh water from outside that state's boundaries. Who am I, but that's the way I see it.
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Dang. He does look good. Hope he sticks around longer. Love that he's trying to do something to help out CA.
Xolodno
(6,401 posts)Took Water Resource Economics in college...you could be in a flood with your house underwater, but the minute you say LA or California is going to buy your excess water...all hell breaks loose. Lake Mead is in Nevada....heh....Las Vegas is buying your water! Which would probably be OK to the majority....of course, that's part of the Colorado River...which California has access to.
Last summer I was in Colorado for vacation, while chatting in the van for a white water rafting trip, one person kind of snickered that California was in a drought....I said "Yeap....and that means your food prices are going to spike"...he went silent.
For a couple of decades, economist have been warning about a situation like this here in California...and no one did anything. Using a pipeline should be for extreme circumstances and is not the answer. Research into making desalinization more efficient and developed, conservation such as no more lawns, golf courses, parks, etc. using recycled water, (hell...have trucks with recycled water be required to fill pools), etc. That will go a long way.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)can move enoigh water, even if it was available, to make much of a difference.
Since when was California considered the "breadbasket" of the U.S.? It could be called the salad bowl or nut bowl however.
Shatner is 84.
procon
(15,805 posts)California already has a massive aqueduct system that begins at Lake Oroville, north of Sacramento, running to Lake Perris, the southernmost water storage facility. There are numerous reservoirs and lakes, pumping plants, and power plants all along the route.
Highway 5 is a major freeway in Calif, and he's proposing what... eminent domain to buy up tens of thousands of properties along it's 800 mile length, and then the same in Oregon, and Washington? Does he think water is free for the taking and he can just bulldoze his way through every west coast state?
Trillo
(9,154 posts)Seems to bypass the land routes, there's a diagram on PDF page 6
Kaleva
(36,354 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)California can ASK us, and then if we say yes, California can pay us for it.
It's not our fault they've tried to stick 34 million people in a Desert.
J_J_
(1,213 posts)A company that once operated a Sitka bottled-water plant but switched its focus to bulk exports says it has confirmed customers in drought-stricken California.
The shipment of bulk water from Sitka will become reality this summer, Alaska Bulk Water CEO Terry Trapp said in an email. Our company has obtained contracts for the shipment of bulk water.
While initial shipments will be to California, markets could expand, he said in the email. The company has been in discussion with many of the water-stressed countries around the world and expects to begin international shipments in the near future as well, he said.
Details about how the water would be delivered are yet unclear, but one option involves a combination of large, flexible bags and cargo-shipping containers.
The water comes from Blue Lake, a 6-mile-long body of water that also provides hydropower and drinking water to Sitka. The water is so abundant that household use is not metered, and so "clean in its natural state" that filtration is not required, according to the Sitka public works department's drinking water quality report. The local government has been working for years to commercialize that liquid asset.
http://www.adn.com/article/20150414/long-anticipated-bulk-water-exports-sitka-start-summer-businessman-says
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Seattle's scenery and environment is due to a lot of rain and a lot of water...stop messing with nature...California needs to conserve...they never have, and now they see that they should have...all of the southwest wasn't meant to be so populated.
hunter
(38,328 posts)We Californians create a sort of cannabis that grows in saltwater, we raise seafood in saltwater ponds, we stop bathing and washing our clothing more than once a week, and we become the premier cannabis and seafood supplier to the world!
Moving fresh water to California, desalinating seawater, that is so twentieth century and primitive. We have to be truly innovative.