Great Lakes Governors Sign protection Deal

[hankthecrank]

The governors of eight states and two Canadian provinces have signed an agreement that would prevent outsiders such as the booming cities of the Southwest from raiding Great Lakes water. From the Associated Press

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/12/13/ap2389591.html

The way things have been going, how did they do this right!!!

Lets just put a meter on it drain it and make a big hole in the ground (sarcasm)

[napi21]

1. I guess this is a dumb question, but how is the SW getting water from the

the Great Lakes? Have they already run a pipeline?

[MichiganVote]

2. No pipeline but they'd like to. Been talked about for years.

[hankthecrank]

3. No pipeline yet to keep future use down

I think its a bust already because they already let tankers fill their holds with as much water as they want. Its supposed to be for ballast. Ballast water is how sea lamprey made it into the Great Lakes. Different problem than this.

[happyslug]

4. A non-problem solved again

To drain the Great Lakes you have to dig some sort of pipeline Through, under or over the Mississippi. Then UP the Missouri and Plate Rivers through the Rockie to the headwaters of the Rio Grande and Colorado Rivers in Colorado (Home of Denver and its Mile High Stadium). It would be easier (and cheaper) to just reverse the Missouri and Plate Rivers and then drill a pipeline through the Rockies to get the water to the headwaters of the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers. Even this later project will cost trillions of Dollars (That the US does NOT have).

Geography is the problem, the reason the South West is Arid is that it is block by The Sierras in California and the Rockies to its west. This is enhanced by the Pacific Current which flows to San Fransisco and then down the coast of California and then turns AWAY from Southern California, you have almost no moisture coming from the west (i.e. Los Angles and Southern California), what moisture that does get to the Southwest is from the San Francisco and north. Now, Texas is to the east of the South West but gets most of its moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. This moisture does not even get through most of Texas let alone into New Mexico. The only other source of Moisture is an occasional Pacific Hurricane that hits the area after crossing Baja California. These are rare and when it comes to the moisture needed in the south west such Hurricanes can be discounted.

Thus the problem has been how to get water to the Southwest? West Texas politicians always come up with the Great Lakes, but only by ignoring how to get the water from the Lakes to the Rio Grande. The "best" plan would be to reverse the Missouri and Plate rivers and then drill through the Rockies to get the waters of the Mississippi to the South West. This will cost Trillions of Dollars, Trillions that the US does not have. In the 1950s Nuclear weapons were proposed to do this, but even if you use Nuclear weapons it still will costs Trillions of Dollars (you still have to MOVE the dirt).

Now I have NOT mentioned the biggest problem with this proposal, that most of the water in the lower Mississippi comes from the OHIO not the Upper Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. This is where the Great Lakes comes in. As the proposal goes the Great Lake Water is water to replace the Missouri and Upper Mississippi water diverted to the Southwest (So to continue the water traffic between St Louis (where the Missouri enters the Mississippi) and Cairo (Where the Ohio enters the Mississippi).

Such a plan would "solve" the southwest's water problem by diverting water to the Rio Grande and the Colorado, but the costs will be high. It is a pipe-dream given the Geography involved. It is brought up by Southwestern (and West Texan) Politicians all the time, for water is a constant headache for them and all they see is all of the water in the Great lakes just sitting there. It is brought up and quickly dies do to the costs.

Now The Great Lake Governors and Canadian Provincial Politicians see an opportunity to "protect" something that will cost them nothing politically (For it is dead do to the Costs). Thus the purpose of this agreement is NOT to protect the Great Lakes, but to give political plus points for all the Politicians involved (i.e. to look like they are doing something about protecting the Environment when such "Protection" has no political downside).

[Kolesar]

5. A company already tried taking water away by the shipload

to another country. They were stopped.

Considering that Florida now has salt water intrusion problems in its municipal wells, I could see them wanting to ship Great Lakes water to their cities by the shipload. Now they are trying to deal with it by pumping treated effluent into the ground to "push" the saline water seaward again.

My hunch is that Texans would rather just pipe water from the Mississippi River than from the Great Lakes. Getting Great Lakes water to California or Arizona is absurd.

[Oerdin]

6. No one is going to spend the massive amounts of money.

A better solution is recycling waste water so they can reuse it.