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Water pipeline to the Southwest? [1]

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Date: 2022-07-27

Water for the Southwest

I’ve been pondering the last few years about the vast amount of money this country has spent in useless foreign wars and what good it could have done here.



I spent my career in mechanical engineering and I propose this as mostly a ‘blue sky’ project, but it’s not technically impossible and though it would cost billions at least we would have SOMETHING to show for it.



Build a water pipeline from Nebraska City, NE to Granby, CO. Here’s the outline of my thinking.



1. It’s the shortest distance for the greatest impact on getting water to the Southwest. (588 miles or so)

2. Design it so that it would be used to siphon off the spring floods that help swell the Mississippi to deadly levels. (probably need to purchase land for a reservoir)

3. Build Solar/battery pumping stations (raising the water almost 11k ft) all along the route to lift the water to the beginnings of the Colorado River and let the water flow down through the already built infrastructure. You use backflow valves to prevent the water from flowing backwards.

4. Have a section just before dumping into the Colorado that uses Solar Power to heat the water to kill biologicals, then allow the water to cool back to ambient prior to being added to the Colorado.



Now, that’s a simple proposal that would cost a fortune and I doubt seriously that it would ever be constructed in our current political climate. And it’s entirely possible that after study, we determine it SHOULDN’T be constructed. However it IS technically possible, and I feel it (or something like this) should be at least studied and determined the balance of helping or hurting it would do.



I’ve looked at joining south of Memphis but the West is so much higher than the central part of the country. It would more than double the length (using Memphis to Lake Powell, for example) and the altitude would still need to raise the water nearly 8k ft.



Anyway as Beau would say: “It’s just a thought” . :)

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/27/2112919/-Water-pipeline-to-the-Southwest

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