Water Pipeline: What If An Aqueduct Was Built From The Great Lakes To The Southwest? 

As someone who lives on the great lakes, I would do EVERYTHING in my power to stop this. If the people in the American southwest want our water, they are welcome to move here. We are not going to allow our natural resources to be plundered by people living in the desert who want green lawns and swimming pools.

When the Southwest sends us Michiganders some 75-degree days in February, we'll talk about giving them some water.

This was a very interesting video, I enjoyed it. I live in Michigan and have my entire life. I personally limit my water use because I know what a process it has to go through before it gets to me. But I am also aware that my location is unique to the rest of the world. I live in the area with the biggest fresh water supply in the world. On that one I consider myself blessed because it's never been of any real concern to me. Relocating the water seems more of a problem, then relocating people. I'm not saying mass caravans of humanity, but there can be solutions on this. There are 8 states and 2 Provinces (Canadian) that sit in this region. There is a lot of good land and water here.

I forgot what it is but the amount of water needed to grow one almond in California is astonishing

The rules here in the Great Lakes region dictate that only areas that are part of the basin (that is, ground water flows to the lakes) are able to take water from the system. Where I live we have Lake Michigan water in our homes. The town 5 miles south of us has to use wells instead, and the water is so poor that most people use bottled water for drinking, and some even use it for bathing and clothes washing. If the rules don't allow this particular town that is only a couple miles out of the Lake Michigan basin to remove water from the lake, rest assured no one involved in the management of the Great Lakes is going to allow the people currently wasting and rapidly depleting the water in the Southwest to destroy our Lakes.

I remember reading a book called " The Late Great Lakes". The one thing I vividly remember is a story where a massive southwest aquifer was completely drained due to the insane demand (people insisting on having green lawns and golf courses, pools, etc.) in a region that isn't set up for such things. In steps the Army Corps of Eng to save the day by designing a pipeline to tap into Lake Michigan. It never gained traction and I hope it never does.

As someone from the great lakes, I can tell you that if they start building the pipeline, they'll need to have really good security for the workers and long term security for the pipeline itself.

Some thoughts, living in MI, I know that we would never give up our water, period. The problem in the SW is directly related to the population and their consumption. Although I don't recall that you mentioned it, the Great Salt Lake has similar problems and it does not require fresh water to fix, i.e. it could use the salt water that is geographically closer to it. I could see a salt water pipeline being feasible (although probably not financially possible) and inland desalination plants powered by solar energy, which would be practical but expensive.

As a Michigander I can tell you that someone is under estimating the impact this would have on the Great Lakes. There have been times when there has been concern over lowering lake levels due to drought and lack of rain and snowfall. As hard as this is to believe I remember years ago the State asking Detroiters to curb their water usage.Then there is the international issue with Canada. Perhaps a better idea would be for people not to move to a desert State. Just as its name implies a desert is an arid place, meaning very little precipitation. And for the record, yes, we are extremely protective of our Great Lakes.

Speaking as a Canadian on the great lakes I feel the mood it pretty much the same on both sides of the boarder in this region... Never going to happen. good video though. you explained it well

Two things you didn't mention regarding Great Lakes water, first, the water level of the Great Lakes rises and falls with the weather. In drought conditions it goes down and in wet times fills up by as much as six feet of difference. There are about 140 commercial ports on the Great Lakes. That is a lot of shipping and a lot of jobs that depend on lake level. Once people outside the Great Lakes Basin start drawing on the water and relying on it, how do you turn off their tap when the lake levels naturally go down? The lakes have gone down about 25 inches since 2020 naturally without any such pipeline as that proposed. Would people accept someone saying, "sorry, you'll just have to wait a few years for the lakes to come back up." Once the tap is open it will be very hard to shut it off. If the natural waterway goes too low, and the ports can't work, what do the people in the Great Lakes region do to ship and receive goods that now go through the ports? I understand the people in the Southwest have jobs and lives and needs, but so do the people in the Great Lakes region. Nothing is gained by sacrificing one for the other. Second, The American Southwest is a historic drought area on our planet. You can't fix that. To ship water from other parts of the country will only make it possible for more people to live there and increase the demand on scarce resources and the need to move yet more water. If you did use Great Lakes water to try and fix that problem you would only make the demand on Great Lakes water that much worse. The Southwest region must live on their available resources and people should not continue to move to an area where the land doesn't have the carrying capacity. There are other places in the country available for people to move without the cost and environmental damage posed by such a pipeline.

I saw an interesting proposal the other day, related to this. Rather than taking water from the great lakes though, they suggested taking water from flood prone areas prior to the storms(so instead of flooding the water is drained then refilled by the storm). They also suggested reusing oil/natural gas pipelines that are no longer used, which would greatly reduce the costs.

Two years ago a company in Iowa wanted to ship 2 billion gallons of water a year from the Jordan Aquifer out to western states. It was met with incredible resistance and it came to nothing. The backlash to this proposal is only and indicator of how large the backlash would be to building a pipeline from the Great Lakes to the SouthWest.

My mother is geologist and has specialized in ground water. She is a firm believer that the water in the Great Lakes was a one time gift from receding glaciers during the last ice age in North America. We should be very careful when considering how to manage this incredible gift. I personally think they represent yet another reason why the region will see a population increase in the future.

I learned recently that there are a few desalination plants in California. Maybe having more of them over time could be more feasible if the technology advances. Even so, it will probably take a lot of different solutions to work with the water crises that's in the Southwest and through much of the rest of the country if not much of the world.

Question: instead of tapping into an existing lake, why not setup pipelines from flood zones? in other words: setup pipes to divert flood water from one area to a "dry" or drought area - that way, you address two problems at the same time.

I drove through Utah recently and my jaw dropped. Was 100 degrees outside and driving through the desert there were green fields with water spewing all over them in the afternoon at the hottest part of the day. I farmed for quite a few years and watering during the day was a big no-no. Couldn't tell if they were being negligent or ignorant but I can tell you alot of that water is being wasted atleast in the area I drove through.

Geoff, sending Great Lakes water anywhere is a non-starter. We who live in the Great Lakes region cherish the unique natural phenomenon that is the Great Lakes. Diverting water away from the region would only serve to compromise this natural ecosystem. As you have said, the Lakes are protected by international treaty with Canada and I, for one, cannot think of any plausible scenario that might serve to justify sending this water anywhere.

When I was living in Texas we got torrential rain and flash flooding sometimes. At the time I was thinking, we should collect all this water and send it to California and the Southwest where they actually need it. Maybe a water pipeline/aquaduct from Texas to the Southwest would make more sense than one from the Great Lakes to the Southwest. Also this route could bypass the Rocky Mountains, making it easier to construct. I'm seeing a lot of self-identified Great Lakes states residents stamping their feet and saying that they'll never let their water go to the Southwest. Great to know that they're so unwilling to help out their fellow Americans in need. We'll all remember this the next time your region is wrecked by massive blizzards. That's not to say that the Southwest doesn't have to change. No more huge lawns and alfalfa farming. If you want to grow crops don't do it in a freakin desert, for chrissakes. But the concept of taking water from an area that has too much of it and sending it to an area that doesn't have enough of it is a no-brainer.

The Phoenix-Scottsdale-Mesa metro area has been at the forefront of water management for over one hundred years. Much of the water for this region comes not just from the Colorado River but from the Salt River Project and its series of dams north and northeast of the city that were put in place as far back as the 1920s. The Verde River and Salt River flow into Metro Phoenix. All of these lakes created by the dams are at 100% capacity as of today. For the past few weeks, water has been released from these dams downstream to replenish groundwater. This actually happens more often than one would think.

To hell with that idea! Draining the Great Lakes so idiots can grow grass in the desert cannot be allowed to happen. Desalinate Ocean water, it's right there!

First time I've heard of anyone proposing taking water from the great lakes to the southwest. The active proposals are to bring water from the Mississippi River, which is a shorter distance and involves fewer geographical barriers. Nevertheless, the evident solution to the water situation in the southwest is, first, to recognize that the desert is not a good place to be growing most crops. Second, the really large source of water is the ocean; nuclear-powered desalination ought to be investigated. But that requires us to discard our prejudices against nuclear power generation.

Even if it was feasible to send water from the Great Lakes to the Southwest, I don't think it would ever be enough. You have people down there who waste literally hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on superfluous things like watering lawns, golf courses, and growing crops that extremely water intensive; all despite the water shortage as it is. If you suddenly give them access to millions of gallons of Great Lakes water, they're just going to waste it too.

As someone studying water in the Colorado Basin, I've never heard this proposed. What I have heard suggested is "taking water from the Mississippi", but the actual implementation of that would be more along the lines of canals taking Missouri River water for the parts of Colorado on the east side of the great divide, instead of taking water over the Rockies from within the Colorado Basin and putting it into the Mississippi Basin like is currently done. (Most likely this would be paid for largely by the lower basin states, effectively purchasing a greater share of the water) This is a more basin-centric model of water usage and would make a noticeable impact, but isn't really a solution in itself. The real problem is the many non-Colorado Basin parts of states using huge amounts of Colorado River water. Utah Valley and the Salt Lake Valley, the Front Range of Colorado, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc. are all outside of the Colorado River Basin, but all have massive aqueducts to them carrying Colorado River Water. The Colorado River has plenty of water for the basin- but we've chosen to divvy it up by political boundaries using prior appropriation doctrine instead of hydrologic boundaries, resulting in the current unsustainable situation.

Firstly, the Great Lakes are a shared water resource of Canada and the US. The US can't unilaterally siphon water from it because it's not theirs to take. Secondly, bulk water exports from the Great Lakes (and Canada) are illegal ....and for good reason. Thirdly, the US southwest doesn't get to destroy the eco-system of another region or country to replenish its own.

As someone who lives about 3 miles from Lake Erie and previously lived about 150' from it: Any proposal like this is absolutely unacceptable. It's not just "ooh, it's pretty", it's our water supply, important to our economy, and enables our regional climate to function. We're also well aware that when municipalities started tapping the Colorado, everyone then said there was plenty of water and they'd never run out, and now look where they are. If you want to partake of our water supply, move here so you're sending most of the water back into the lakes.

Some say oil pipelines can go thousands of miles, so why not water? Reason is that hydrocarbon products like gasoline sell for dollars per gallon -- while water sells for only fractions of a cent per gallon, one-thousandth the value for the same volume. It's not economical to transport that much that far without huge subsidies that obscure the true cost. Besides construction, there's pumping energy that will be most of the cost, it can't be all gravity flow. The southwest can recycle and reuse wastewater, capture rainwater & stormwater, use drip irrigation on crops, cover canals to prevent evaporation and line them to prevent percolation. All of that will deliver more water at less cost.

Great! Presumably they have tried Olive trees, Moringa trees, and other drought hardy crops. Of course, there is likely more discussion regarding ways to channel heavy rains to water reservoirs in need. Thank you for sharing informative videos!

People rise to the level of expectations placed upon them in my opinion. As a California native who has lived in LA and San Diego for nearly 40 years, I am absolutely opposed to the idea of such a project. The citizens of the desert southwest need to accept the reality of our situation and regulate our use of water accordingly. This also includes industry and agriculture most emphatically! When I moved to San Diego 24 years ago the first thing I did was rip out the lawn and plant a cactus garden. For all these many years my bi-monthly water bills report that my property uses 75% less water than the average household in my zip code. To my mind this proves that the population of my area has a lot of room to improve on how they use water on their respective properties. And just so you all know, I even have a koi pond!

In January 1972, I went to Tucson, AZ for the first time. At that time, it had 55,000 people. NW of town was a fenced off area, with keep out and danger warnings hanging on a chain link fence, around maybe 160 acres. I asked someone about that, I was told the Aguifer had been pumped out and the ground was collapsing. Humm. 1972. And people had green grass lawns. I did see one thing that impressed me. A new housing development went up and as I drove through it. One house had a front yard that had a couple of catus in it but the rest was two inches of pea gravel. And a worker was spraying the pea gravel with a green dye. Wow. The perfect yard. No maintenance. Water use? None. Except for maybe, an eight ounce glass of water for each catus. Once a year. If you feel like it. Otherwise? Hey, you were good to go. Northerners go to the desert, plant all kinds of stuff they have in the north, water a grass front yard and now wonder, ‘how can we be out of water’. And throughout history, we know the SW USA has had multiple 50 to 80 year droughts. This is only year 22 of a drought. You want to live in the desert? You build desalination plants. They talked about that back in the early 1960’s. And did nothing about it. Now, of course, they’ll want the rest of us to pay for those plants. To which I respectfully reply, “F U”!

Great presentation! I agree with your summary, they should be able to reuse their water, as we do in Florida.... it is a crying shame, that cities and counties across the country are not utilizing water reclamation - water reuse. 1970's gave us the USEPA and the Clean Water Act ...... taking the treatment of water to an advanced level is minimal and the beneficial reuse is a win - win!

As a Wisconsinite, I can tell you all of the states that border the lakes would tell anyone trying to get the water to eat dirt. Like you say in the video, EXTREMELY unpopular among the people, we are very protective of our lakes. We would rather the southwest shrivel and die before we hand over our great lakes.

As someone who grew up near Lake Michigan and still currently living 5 minutes from the lake, there is no way in hell we are willing to divert any of our Great Lakes water to the western US. 😅 Hence the pact to protect the Great Lakes. We need to preserve them. Plus they are vital shipping routes as well for large ships and such. The states that surround the Great Lakes are the only states that get to use them for drinking water. And even then we limit it to towns and cities that are within the Great Lakes water shed area. So basically any town more than 50 miles from the lakes are out of luck for the most part. My town has Lake Michigan water as it's main source. Just like Chicago does. But my town is right on the lake shore. 🙂

Utah is considering piping in sea water from the Pacific Ocean to refill the Great Salt Lake. Arid-zona is much closer to the sea than Utah is. It seems like they could spend some time thinking about a desalination project. They could even power it via solar.

As someone born in the southwest people used to have rocks in their lawns and maybe some cacti. Some people painted rocks or used astro turf if they wanted that green lawn look. Then in the early 2000's things started to change. And now Sedona, and Scottsdale are practically LA east. LA was in a drought and almost no one stopped watering their lawns. Those same people are now moving to AZ. This is why there is a water shortage

How about creating a New Las Vegas, but in a place with more water? There's places in the Southeastern region that could use the jobs, like in Arkansas .Other than that, I can only think planting fast growing plants like bamboo in certain parts of the country, or building community air wells in drier regions. A tough problem really.

Would like to see an video on a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to the southwest states using desalination.

Sounds like the states surrounding the Great Lakes are very protective of their Lakes and rightfully so. I live in the Southwest and at least here in SoCal I’m glad we’re doing things here and there to combat water wastage and mismanagement. Glad to do my part, but it’s disheartening to hear people like Kim Kardashian use over 200,000 gallons in a month for her residence. Makes the efforts seem futile

It's actually very simple as to why we shouldn't do this. These lakes were created by massive pressure incurred by glacial activity. The depths of the bases of these lakes i.e. the bottom are actually maintained by the sheer vast weight of the standing water. If you start draining the lakes the base of the lakes you will start a cascading rise of the bases of the lakes. In a relatively small amount of time the lakes would disappear.

Great topic, Geoff have you heard of NAWAPA, a similar project of the 1960s ?

Senator Paul Simon of Illinois spoke of this in the late 1980’s. Overpopulation, overuse of water for expanding ag and cheaper water in a desert than the Midwest with just one drought away from a crisis. Amazing how he predicted this very scenario.

Or crazy thought Stop using water for high intensity crops like Rice and Almonds in a desert.

Great content. It is never a good idea to repeat what they did to the Aral Sea/lake. Perhaps you could do an episode as to where does all that transferred water go and another one on the Saltan Sea?

We got a bunch of rain out here recently so it's all good now

It would be significantly cheaper to build both a dedicated power plant and reverse osmosis system (like that in Antioch, Israel) to pull desalinize water from the Pacific Ocean.

It could never be, Canada would never allow such a huge ecological disaster by draining the Great Lakes. Not gonna happen.

You are going to find that the Great Lakes have already been tapped into by such diversions as Chicago's link into the Mississippi River system. There's a lot of water in the Great Lake's basins, however, the overall flow is another matter. All in, the concept you suggest is a bit late in the game - as others have tapped into this resource. For instance, right now the hydro generators at Niagara Falls have the capacity to turn off the water flowing over the falls, and likewise, there is the canal system linking to the eastern seaboard. A US-Canadian treaty regulates the flow over the falls, ensuring a substantial flow during the daytime, and permitting the hydro stations to increase their drawdown after dark - recognising that the falls are a significant US-Canadian tourist attraction. Meanwhile, the Great Lakes experience fluctuating levels from one year to the next.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers a pipe line 30 foot in diameter could be built from the Columbia River to Southern California. A tunnel boring machine would be used to bore a hole under the Pacific Ocean. There would be enough water to support the agriculture in Southern California and build all the way to Nevada and Arizona.

We’ll keep our water right here, thank you very much.

As a Minnesotan, I'm going to mention the fact that superior has had it's draughts. It has been dangerously low to the point of stopping shipping from so low water the docks were at risk. (It was a few years ago)

As someone who lives on the shore of Lake Superior, there is zero chance that the people in the region would ever accept this. The states and provinces would completely reject it. The western states need to work on desalination projects. There's so much water in the ocean that they could use if they really wanted to.

Agree 100% that the primary solution is better water management in the SW. But it's also fun to point out another logistical issue in transporting water from the great lakes (elevation ~600 ft above sea level) to cities in the SW like Albuquerque or Denver which are a mile above sea level.

I think the little pacific project is a great idea. At the end you put in a thorium reactor which can desalinate the water. You get fresh water, sent to lake mead, and power as the end result.

I'm in Windsor Ontario and surrounded by the great lakes. I would be very unhappy if the lakes were being drained to pump to the US southwest. Desalination plants may be expensive, but cheaper than draining the lakes and who knows maybe drawing salt water and converting it to fresh water could help with rising sea levels as well.

I'm from Los Angeles and that is a terrible idea ecologically, economically, politically, and socially. Much of the water issues in these states can be resolved just by improving the water irrigation, purification, and storage practices. That oil pipeline is a disaster waiting to happen. The aqueduct may only be transporting water, but its not worth the investment.

Another videos I saw - said we don’t have to build a new pipeline for water. We have plenty of gas pipeline throughout the country that can be repurposed for water. (Yes that might take work, but we don’t have to start from scratch.) Instead of building new pipelines directly to SouthWest (wherever that is), it can be redirected into the Colorado River & let Mother Nature do the rest. They did suggest to empty reservoirs (to allow rainfall to fill them)

Not only is it a bad idea but the Great Lakes are a Regional Treasure. The amount of push back that you'd get back from the Midwest and Canada would be astronomical. The fact is the U.S. doesn't own the Great Lakes and the Southwest certainly doesn't.

I live about a mile from Lake St. Clair in the Detroit area. One very practical problem would be that that lake levels rise and fall. When the water level is high this would not be much of a problem, but when lake levels are low diverting water would impede shipping which is vital for the Great Lakes region. The political problems are fortunately insurmountable.

Great idea I suggested that years ago!

Nicely produced video! At 2:34 you state that since 1922, Arizona and the entire US Southwest has been receiving and using Colorado River water. However, while the Colorado River Compact was signed by all 7 state delegates in 1922, the State of Arizona did not officially ratify the Compact until 1944. The Central Arizona Project, which is the diversion canal from the Colorado River to Central Arizona, did not start construction until 1973, with substantial completion of water delivery occurring in 1993. Thanks for your efforts on identifying the hurdles and feasibility of this new water diversion!

Does anyone remember back in the late 80's when the Mississippi was so dry that you could almost walk across it? Barges were stuck in the mud everywhere. Don't send water to the southwest from the Mississippi.

One huge problem I haven’t seen addressed so far is the shipping that takes place on the lakes from the Atlantic Ocean to the western ports of Lake Superior. This is a major trade route involving every one of the lakes and the rivers and canals connecting them. Each of these waterways would be negatively impacted by the removal of water. Eventually, shipping would cease due to the lack of enough water to support the huge ships that sail the lakes. No water, no shipping, no goods, no jobs, no income. There is much more to this proposal than meets the eye at first glance.

As a geographer, you can probably answer this one: Would there be a way to transfer water directly south from the northwest to the southwest? I'm not familiar with the area but I've often wondered if you could find a way to refill Owns Lake. I enjoy your presentations.

The great rain making machine is located in the Pacific Northwest and much of that rainfall ends up by going out to the Pacific ocean again. Tapping into this area on the land would be the way to go. Valleys could be flooded and the water pumped uphill to a higher elevation, then allow gravity to flow the water downhill to the ever increasing Southwest desert.

I would love to see a video on the idea of a pipeline from the ocean to the great salt lake.

As a Canadian, living in the midst of the Great Lakes, "Hell No!"

Rebuild your water table in California by terracing, adding trees and properly maintaining them by controlled burns of deadwood , build irrigation ditches downstream from a few desalination plants and then purify and sell the salt to help pay for the project. This will allow you to pull more freshwater in to use and it will slowly pay for itself with the increased agriculture output plus the salt gained from desalination.

Hey I’m confused you say that water takes up a lot of water for agricultural needs and I’m not doubting that. But I remember hearing somewhere that producing energy also takes up a lot of water Since we use oil to make water boil. Or is that not the case for Arizona because it gets a lot if it’s power from the Hoover dam?

The Great Lakes states also stand to benefit if the southwest becomes uninhabitable. Major cities like Cleveland and Detroit have 2/3ds as many residents as they have housing for. As we approach midcentury, the Great Lakes can expect a return of migrants in search of cheap water, low cost of living, and milder summers than they can get in the sunbelt.

Living in the southwest is a choice I made years ago. I would never expect the great lakes to be taped for our benefit out here, to even consider the feasibility is arrogant to no end IMO. The 20th century was one of the moment when we as Humans made great strides in taming the Colorado river, however the drought is also a reminder that without proper management, we are doomed to loose the progress that allowed us to move into the desert in the first place.

Excellent video, thanks.

There is a treaty between Canada and the bordering states that surround the Great Lakes. Congress nor the president can ignore a treaty. Even from the Mississippi River will not work because this drought has effected the water level of the Mississippi River. What is at issue is the residents out west waste water, particularly California. Follow the lead of Nevada and recycle the water. Employ a desert environment in landscaping. It’s just that residents use too much water. They did a study that people use less water, in the east. Tax homes with pools.

This has been proposed for many years, and the states/provinces bordering the Great Lakes collectively say "Hell NO!". You want water? Move here where the water is.

I remember when desert communities were destroyed in order to funnel more water to L.A. At some point we need to realize that there are simply some parts of our country incapable of supporting large human populations. Setting up aqua ducts isn't the solution to the south wests water shortage. Not tat the expense of communities where water is plentiful.

This is what happens when you live in a place where that many people were never supposed to live. The desert southwest is called a desert for a reason

You mentioned that we Great Lakes folks are "fond' of our waters. It should be stated that we also NEED the Great Lakes. It isn't just the tens of billions of dollars from tourism. ($7 billion is just from sport fishing.) Shipping would literally dry up. Thousand foot bulk carriers cruise ships and ocean going ships from around the world are dependent on our Lakes. So is much of our industry. We also drink the stuff! BTW: You forgot to include Quebec, south of the ST. Lawrence, on your map.

I have a very simple analogy for this idea of a pipline/aqueduct from the midlands to the West and why it's a very, very bad idea. Scenario: You are a family of 4 living on $62K/year. You get a 2% raise every year and you save about 5% of your combined income. You don't have enough for a big house because of where you live so you rent. You have one car and the others use public transportation. You live in an area with rent that isn't the highest, but is pretty steep. You have about $250/month left over after all expenses and savings. All in all, you're doing pretty well. Now the government has decided to up the sales tax in your county by 1%, rent goes up by 5%/year and you're having trouble with your car which needs repairs. So now you're having to use credit to get by. You stop or lower your 5% savings just to make ends meet and now have nothing left at the end of the month. Actions: You get a new job or win the lottery to the point of $30K/year more than before. So now you're earning $92K/year. You move to that house you've been wanting now that you can afford it, you buy a new car and junk the older one, reinstate your 5% savings and basically start buying/living up to your new income. What you do NOT do is get the new job and pocket that extra $30K/year. Situation: This is the same as the West living up to/past their water supply, only to be supplied now with more water. Summary: It's human nature that people will say - we now have plenty of water. Water restrictions are abandoned, people don't conserve, water is freely given where it shouldn't be, more people move in now that they know water is no longer an issue. Outcome: In only a few decades, you will be back to square one only this time, you'll have nowhere to draw more water from. This is essentially being bailed out, not addressing the real problem, putting a band-aid over it and kicking it down the road. Disaster looms at the end of that dead-end road. It's not if but when. Meanwhile the river(s) from where this water was taken now suffer with lower flush rates, sediment build-up, stagnating water in some places leading to diseases, possible water restrictions for them, etc. It's just a massive dumpster fire waiting to happen. I don't have the answer, but I know stealing water from the center of the country to feed the deserts of the West isn't it.

Dear Southwest, Get your own damn water. You are the ones that wanted to live in a desert. Leave our Great Lakes alone. Signed, the Midwest.

I have had similar ideas. The quick and dirty one is piping excess ground water from South Florida to a distribution point out West. This water flows to the Gulf of Mexico. And no, I am not talking about robbing it from the Everglades. But my truly grandiose idea is to build navigable canals from California to the East coast. It would be a water conveyance to provide water not only to drought areas, but would drain potentially flooding regions also. As a navigable canal network, it would make transportation of goods for agriculture and manufacturing more efficient, and create a whole new cruise ship genre. Asian tourists would enter at California, get off the boats periodically at emerging river boat towns, spend money, get back on another boat to do the same down the line. Eventually they would be spit out of the East coast and could continue to another continent. The canals could be shaped like meandering rivers to make them more aesthetically pleasing.

Here is something to consider: When the Flint Water Crisis happened, it came out that the Granholm administration had made a deal with Nestle to take 400 million gallons of water from the Great Lakes per day. Not monthly, not yearly, but daily. Yet, Nestle would not cease production to make bottled water for Flint. You know who did? Anhauser Busch in St. Louis. They literally stopped making beer so that canned water could be shipped directly to Flint. Given this, I do not see fresh water going from any lake via aqueduct to the Southwest, simply because of Chicago and Detroit, two major cities on the shores of the Great Lakes that would definitely put up a fight. Further cities include Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, and Buffalo. And that doesn't even include Canadian cities that are along the shores of the Great Lakes. On a philosophical level, I myself think that the Upper Midwest should not be responsible for the mismanagement of water in the Southwest and in California. And if forestry and land management is any indication, anybody who thinks that the Southwest and West Coast is more worthy to have the water of the Great Lakes than the people who live around the lakes, is delusional and out of their minds. I can honestly and forthrightly say that it is not the responsibility of the people around the Great Lakes to take care of the people in the Southwest, when those people never assisted in helping the residents of Flint.

What if people relocated where the local environment could support them?

I remember reading once that a lot of people will migrate to Arizona specifically because the dry desert air is supposed to be good for allergy sufferers, but the green lawns have negated that.

Would it make alot more sense to ship in Ocean water via a aqueduct run massive solar stills or desalination facilities whatever is more cost and energy efficient might make more sense to run desalination plants on the coast and pump the water inland after. I'm not a hydraulic engineer but I know how tuff salt water can be on equipment. I truly hope to see more desalination plants opening up on the west coast especially if they run on green energy. The idea of extracting some of the minerals like lithium and cobalt that are found in Ocean water is an idea that gives me hope for the future.

What about a much shorter pipline from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River? Just to help the Colorado River to reach its projected needs?

Upper Missouri River Fort Peck Reservoir Montana to a high enough elevation for it to run into the Green River in Wyoming. Could serve two purposes. Pump water during winter months to be ready to help control flooding issues in the spring. Other area would be the snake river to the Green.

I would like to add that the Chinese south north water transfer project has been a disaster with bad ecological results. China had put the project on pause and still hasn’t restarted it, which says something. We should not make the same mistake here. The cost to people and economics is far too high.

You don’t need an aqueduct going all the way from the great lakes to California all you really need to do is to be able to divert the right amount of water to the closest available location of the great plains aquifer after filtering the water extensively allow it to drain into the great plains aquifer at the other end closestTo the Sierra Nevada’s you put a pumping station where you then pump the excess water from the Great Plains aquifer up over the Rockies and into the Sierra Nevada’s basin then all you have to do is let the natural river system do what it does best

A $220M bond was approved in 1931 by voters to get the project funded. There had to have been a prospectus for that bond. Where would you find the prospectus for it?

If you want Great Lakes water, move to the Great Lakes region!

Agreed, pulling from the great lakes would be unfeasible. Some of the "better" ideas I've read are pulling from the Mississippi and/or the Missouri. The one thing that I've noticed that is missed/overlooked often is agriculture. As you said one of the major long-term issues is the draining of the lakes/basin without replenishment. While not directly, California is suffering from that now through food exports outside of its basin as it produces 12ish percent of the entire US production. And more specifically 20% of US milk, 75% of US peaches 78% of US lettice, 88% of US grapes, and 99% or more of US almonds(60% of the world's), figs, olives, artichokes, kiwifruit, dates, pomegranates, raisins, sweet rice, pistachios, plums, and walnuts. That's a lot of water being shipped out both across the country and the world. A good example of this in action is/was Tulare lake. As for using desalination instead, there are two issues with that. The leftover brine after the freshwater has been extracted and high energy costs. Our energy grid is already strained, especially with our last heatwave and a reduction in hydroelectric due to reduced river flows and reservoir capacity. As for why grow in a desert, technically the main agriculture areas are mediterranean(Csa) or semi-arid(BSk) not deserts(BWh), which means multiple growing seasons and mild wet winters. Also, thanks to the surrounding mountains the san fernando valley has very rich soil.

If they need to pipe in water then build a pipeline then build a pipeline from the ocean along with Desalination plants, the processing will have to be done locally to deal with the byproducts of converting seawater. The other option is discontinue farming or move.

Factorys require alot of water and farms make raw materials for manufacturing and manmade forrests make plastics for railroad tracks from composite materials

We have a treaty with Canada on water usage. There is also a Supreme Court ruling on how much water each state can remove from the Great Lakes. Most states are at their limits.

Solution: Tell people to stop trying to live and farm where there isn't enough water to sustain them. It was once a fundamental principle that we settled where water was in abundance. Why? Because it's one of the three things necessary for survival; air, food, and water. If you want to try to live and grow food where there isn't enough water, that's your business. I'll be sure to sign you up as a contestant for the next Darwin Award.

“Are you kidding me?” ( double bold. Italics. Flying pigs! )

Future advancements in desalination plants seems promising💧

I live in the west and the amount of water that we waste is unbelievable, and you are absolutely correct when you say the solution is within our own conservation and common sense use of water. But water is money and when you put the two together all common sense goes out the window? Greed takes over and the power struggle continues!

Raising the Great Salt Lake back to it's 1984 level would bring more wet snow to the the Utah mountains and west slope of Colorado's range which would provide sufficient water to the southwest. The problem, like you said, is that UT diverts a lot of water for alfalfa/commercial agriculture which has caused the GSL to be at it's lowest levels ever. No lake = no lake effect storms. No lake effect storms, no snowmelt to send down stream. BTW, UT only now is actually taking water from the Colorado River (was in the news this past summer - and Vegas was not happy about it) Living in the 2nd or 3rd driest states (depending on the year), it makes no sense that our cities allow developers to put in parking strips that need to be watered, and often require yards to have 70% turf as well as letting 70% of that water be used for water heavy agriculture, i.e. alfalfa. When the Great Salt Lake dries up or even falls to 4,185 foot elevation, you will see bad things happening - nationwide. Compass Minerals, which operates on the north end of the lake, produces an important component to the fertilizer used to grow fruits and nuts. US Magnesium, on the lake’s southern end, is the only domestic source of magnesium, which is used in a vast array of products from soda cans to car parts to pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Geological Survey this year declared it a critical mineral for national security and supply chains. When the lake dries up, there no longer be "The Greatest Snow on Earth" in Utah and the drought will make the one we are in now look like nothing. Not to mention the mass exodus from the Wasatch Front. All those people will have to move, there won't be enough water from the springs, rivers or mountains to sustain the population; in addition the toxic dust will cause major health issues. If you're reading this and you're anywhere near Independence MO, that will be were many, many Utahnians will likely move to. So yeah, maybe a pipeline from The Great lakes isn't viable, but water from somewhere will have to be brought in. If the Great Salt Lake dries up, it will make everything in the Sierra Nevada rain shadow into a largely uninhabitable wasteland.

What makes sense to me is; "Desaltation"! Why not create a "Syphon" pump from the waters of Baha waters or the Pacific Ocean? The elevated water in the Mountains of California can be "Flowed" down streams creating Electrical power to desalt the some of the water. The pooled salted waters (some will get to points where it will stop and create ponds), New Fish stocking sights. In Mountain passes, we can create reservoirs of fresh water and salt waters. In any case we get moisture and if freshwater - good growing medium for crops.

We have to build the aqueduct. However, the way I'm envisioning it, the pipeline from the Great Lakes to the Colorado River will be just one part of a much larger nation-wide network of irrigation and flood control aqueducts. The goal is to source freshwater for the West from various locations in the East where there is a seasonal surplus at any given time. This way, we won't take too much from any one place. For instance, when there's flooding along the Mississippi River or the Gulf Coast, or the Ohio River, the national network of pumps and canals will collect some of that surplus water and send it out West. We just need to build a huge reservoir somewhere to store all of the water. Also, none of this is that technologically complicated. Will it be expensive? Yes, but the federal government spent (printed) something like $2 trillion during covid, so I think we can afford to build a national flood control and water delivery system for a couple hundred billion (which will be spent incrementally over many years). Also, the increase in land value and economic output from more irrigation will far outweigh the cost of building this system. My fellow Americans, this is really a matter of basic fairness. The rest of the country has to share their water with us, because we're supplying y'all with tons and tons of food. So, it's only fair. The vast majority of our water goes to agriculture, and a huge portion of our agricultural output goes to feed the rest of the country (especially during winter). So it's only fair that the East shares some of its water with the West, since we're the same country and we're also providing you with food. By the way, if the East would divert just 1 to 2% of the water that flows through the Mississippi River system to the West, that would be equivalent to doubling the entire amount of water that flows through the Colorado River system. The Colorado River gives life to 40 million residents and supports all of this farming, so just think about the economic impact of DOUBLING the amount of water out West, while taking a very, very minuscule amount of water from places that have more than enough to share. Food security is also an issue of national security, but I don't need to go into all of that. Finally, we don't really care what Canada thinks about any of this, because Canada has way more water than they could ever use in a million years, and they should really be selling us some of that water, but they refuse to. In any case, the system of pipelines and aqueducts isn't going to extend into Canada, so we don't need their permission.