Ideas for states with lack of water

[adigal]

I have an idea, which may not be practical, but would be feasible and create thousands of new jobs. Nebraska is drowning this year, as two states away, New Mexico and Arizona, and Texas, also, burn in drought. Why can't water from areas that regularly flood be diverted and directed toward the parched states? I know these states get their water from the north already, but this would kill two birds with one stone.

Besides from cost, why could this not be done?? Ideas?? Thanks,

[HereSince1628]

1. Please call or google 'Coors Distribution and Marketing'

for more information on the redistribution of water between mesic and xeric locations in the US.

Coors is dedicated to solving the thirst problem.

[florida_lurker]

2. What you call cost is actually the energy required to do it.

It could most certainly be done but the costs involved would be absolutely astronomical.

It's like saying "well, we have all this food here, why not just send it to Somalia"?

[Ian David]

3. Just set-up a REALLY long line of people with a whole bunch of buckets? n/t

[WatsonT]

4. Like a shovel ready project building canals, water pipelines, dams, and reservoirs

To control excess water and ship it where needed?

We had an opportunity for such a massive national project. And a failing construction industry with hundreds of thousands of laid off manual laborers willing to do the work.

We gave the money to wallstreet instead. And in return they created . . . well zero jobs.

[Kali]

5. we bitch about the cost of oil and gas

nobody is going to pay that for bulk water. yet

side note: AZ and CA already pipe water over and between watersheds - it is very expensive and we will probably never pay the costs back

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

http://www.cap-az.com/ (I am on dial-up and this page is taking forever to load, no idea what is on it)

CAP - Central Arizona Project
water is diverted from the Colorado river to Tucson, almost 350 miles and it was one of the most expensive water projects ever completed

[ChrisBorg]

6. Environmental impact would kill it dead.

[adigal]

9. When people fear dying of thirst

they will do it, so it would be smart to do it right.

And if the water was floodwater, and sent to drought areas, how would that hurt the environment? It seems like win-win to me.

[NightWatcher]

7. maybe start by stop fracking. Last year Texas wasted 13.8 billion gallons of water fracking

no idea how many other billions of gallons they made unfit to drink

[Johonny]

8. We do build aqueducts

I'm not sure such things are good at boon/bust water cycles. A system that was design to divert 100 year flood waters would stay mostly empty for long times and would thus clog and need heavy maintenance. We have great systems that bring water to places like LA or New York City, but I imagine those things don't really help you with seasonal flooding. They just aren't design to divert those kind of flows. Could you really do water management in Arizona or Texas based on counting on 100 year flood cycles? Doesn't seem likely. They have other water management devices for flooding. Of course thanks to global warming the 100 year flood cycle could be out the window.