Filling Lake Mead with Mississippi River Water No Longer a Pipe Dream
Posted on: February 7, 2023, 02:30h.
Last updated on: February 10, 2023, 10:54h.
Despite recent rains, the water level in Lake Mead – which supplies Las Vegas with 90% of its water – was 1,046.94 feet above sea level on Feb. 2. That’s only 28% of its full capacity. And cutting water use, even drastically, may not solve the problem.
Because of climate change, some estimates predict that the Colorado River may deliver only half its current amount of water by the year 2100.
Pumping Mississippi River water into Lake Mead has been suggested before. But as water levels drop – threatening to eventually cut off California, Arizona, and Mexico from their Colorado River water allotments – and as engineering technology advances, large-scale river diversion doesn’t seem as much of a pipe dream as it once did.
In 2021, the Arizona state legislature actually passed a measure urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi to the Colorado to boost its flow. Studies show that a project like this would be possible, though it would take decades of construction and billions of dollars. Maybe even trillions.
“I think it would be foolhardy to dismiss it as not feasible,” Richard Rood, professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan, told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “But we need to know a lot more about it than we currently do.”
Large-scale river diversion projects have been proposed in the US since the 1960s when an American company sought to redistribute Alaskan water across the continent using canals and reservoirs. That plan never generated enough support – a fate shared by similar proposals in Minnesota and Iowa.
Still Too Pricey … For Now
In 2012, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation performed a Colorado River Basin analysis considering several solutions to the current drought – including importing water from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
Under the analyzed scenario, water would be diverted to Colorado’s Front Range and areas of New Mexico. That would cost at least $1,700 per acre-feet of water, potentially yield 600,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2060, and take 30 years to construct.
A decade later, Roger Viadero, an environmental scientist and engineer at Western Illinois University, calculated that moving this scale of water would require a pipe 88 feet in diameter – twice as long as a semi-trailer – or a 100-foot-wide channel that’s 61 feet deep.
“As an engineer, I can guarantee you that it is doable,” Viadero told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “But there are tons of things that can be done but aren’t ever done.”
Viadero’s team estimated the cost of buying enough water to fill up the Colorado River’s Lake Mead and Lake Powell at more than $134 billion, assuming a penny per gallon. Add to that heavy construction costs and the costs of powering the equipment needed to pump the water over the Western Continental Divide. Buying the land to secure water rights would be very costly, too.
Politics: The Other Problem
The political hurdles are also considerable. They include wetlands protections, endangered species protections, drinking water supply considerations, and interstate shipping protections. Precedents set by other diversion attempts – such as the ones that created the Great Lakes Compact, also cast doubt over the political viability of any large-scale Mississippi River diversion attempt.
And transnational pipelines would also impact ecological resources. Lower Mississippi River flow means less sediment carried down to Louisiana, where it’s needed for coastal restoration. Diverting that water also means spreading problems, like pollutants, excessive nutrients, and invasive species such as Asian carp.
None of this even considers the most important question: Is there even enough water to spare? The Mississippi River basin may no longer be a reliable answer to the Colorado River basin’s problem since the Mississippi is drying up, too. Water levels are at or below the low-water threshold along a nearly 400-mile stretch of the river. This past year, sunken boats, such as the Diamond Lady riverboat casino, are surfacing like bodies are in Lake Mead.
“No one wants to leave the western states without water,” Melissa Scanlan, a freshwater sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “But moving water from one drought-impacted area to another is not a solution.”
Growing Precedent
Still, there is hope. Last year, a Kansas groundwater management agency received a permit to truck 6,000 gallons of Missouri River water into Kansas and Colorado to recharge an aquifer. Several approved diversions already drain water from the Great Lakes. And in northwestern Iowa, a river has repeatedly been pumped dry by a rural water utility that sells at least a quarter of the water outside the state. And there
In July 2022, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation investing $1.2 billion into projects that conserve water and bring more into the state. Among its provisions, the law granted Arizona’s water infrastructure finance authority to “investigate the feasibility” of potential out-of-state water import agreements.
And, as the tired adage goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. According to a two-year projection by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, by the end of July 2024, Lake Mead’s water level could fall to as low as 992 feet above sea level. That’s perilously close to a dead pool (895 feet), the point when a reservoir is so low gravity will no longer allow it to release water downstream. If and when Lake Mead hits this point, that will be dire news for downstream regions, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Tucson, and Mexico.
“It’s possible that the situation gets so dire that there is an amount of money out there that could overcome all of these obstacles,” Rhett Larson, an Arizona State University professor of water law, told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “It might be in the trillions, but it probably does exist.”
In the meantime, researchers encourage more feasible and sustainable options, such as better water conservation, water recycling, and less agricultural reliance.
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Last Comments ( 177 )
I've been in Las Vegas for 33 years and raised all my children here and retired from the plumbing trade recently mostly new construction on the commercial side and residential I see them breaking ground on new projects and if you know anything about construction then you know that the water wasted on every project is astronomical, just keeping the dust down which by law they have to takes a huge amount of water.l know we can be doing so much more than we are the developments the casinos are not going to amount to diddly squat without water not to mention what we as individuals can do to help if we don't work together all our lives spent building a life in Las Vegas will come to an end sometime in the mid to end of 2024. I'm hopeful something will come to prolong it but I'm also making plans to head north east if the powers to be don't have a viable plan in the next 6 months just to slow the usage down ..
, yet they are building like crazy. Houses casinos, and more strip malls. If there isn't enough water, why keep building in over crowded areas.
The approach can be used to produce sodium hydroxide, among other products. Otherwise known as caustic soda, sodium hydroxide can be used to pretreat seawater going into the desalination plant. This changes the acidity of the water, which helps to prevent fouling of the membranes used to filter out the salty water — a major cause of interruptions and failures in typical reverse osmosis desalination plants.
Stop bringing in more people over the border, more people equals more water usage and more crops more electricity
Maybe, just maybe 50+ million people living in a desert could be the reason for the enormous strain on water resources!!??
Why can't water/Snow be trucked down from Canada?? They have hazardous snow falls there. Trucking would not impact wildlife, and the snow/water would not have the unwanted toxins that the Mississippi might have. The Midwest could keep their needed water, and Canada could be relieved of some un-needed snow. No pipelines needed for trucking. If snow could be kept frozen by refrigerated trucks, it could be transported easily. The Coquahala highway in Canada is always getting tons of snow. Please look into this.
Why can't water/Snow be trucked down from Canada?? They have hazardous snow falls there. Trucking would not impact wildlife, and the snow/water would not have the unwanted toxins that the Mississippi might have. The Midwest could keep their needed water, and Canada could be relieved of some un-needed snow. No pipelines needed for trucking. If snow could be kept frozen by refrigerated trucks, it could be transported easily. The c Coquahala highway in Canada is always getting tons of snow. Please look into this.
Cully has hit the nail on the head. Our government is too busy borrowing money from China to send to Ukraine and dozens of other countries, to have to worry about US citizens. The leader in Ukraine has already informed us on video that once the war is over between Ukraine and Russia, America is going to rebuild the infrastructure of the country of Ukraine. It's "America Last" once again. California could easily supply its own state with water through the desaltation process. But even californiaans don't matter to the Federal government.
Less agricultural reliance?!?! The solution to the water shortages to not grow food anymore? We are already dependent on China for everything else including our prescription drugs, do we really want to leave ourselves open and vulnerable when it comes to our food supply?
Deposit salt waste in the salt flats of Utah...problem solved.
The Scott from Minnesota's are the idiots we have to thank for problems like this btw. Those that think not being able to own coloreds and women shouldn't have any rights - and that's why the Colorado river.....
This is wrong for water usage. Diverting water is the wrong solution. City growth, such as Las Vegas, must take into account the water needs of the population. If you do not water, do not build.
Stop over building and over populating areas that cannot sustain it! Move out of the desert if you want water. Use common sense.
I totally agree with Jeremy,Feb 9 the people need to get on your knees and return to God as does this whole country!! STOP Abortion gods hand is about to come down on us All !! Our so called expert's, scientists, professors, politicians, will not in any way solve this situation,All of us need to return to the true church, that is the Catholic Church and it's teaching, visit your nearest Catholic church and pray in front of the blessed sacrament - Scott from Minnesota
One more thing remember when Hoover dam was built it took a full 7 years for lake Mead to run full that was in the best of times with the Colorado River seven full years to fill up but like I said impatience is the American way bigger better faster more oh and let's not forget over packaged