Don't know much about civil engineering

[question everything]

but.. as I am reading about flood in Texas and now in DC and in Maryland, and last month in New Hampshire, and then about the severe drought in the southwest, I have to wonder:

Would it be feasible to build a series of channel with valves or dams that could direct extra rain fall from flooded areas to drought ones?

Some years back I remember reading about ideas to send water from Canada - I think that they were not interested.

Sure, it would cost. But think about the cost now, including tax relief programs for the infected areas.

Mainly, think about all the construction and engineering jobs that can be created and that cannot be out sourced.

Wouldn't this be a nice theme for Democratic candidates? Yes, think about the cost of the Iraq war - but that's a given.

In general, think about investing in our own infrastructure, while we do the same, or trying to, in Iraq.

[madokie]

1. i am a thinking that the only infastructure we are worried about

in Iraq is at the new embasy compound and the other bases we are building. not for the Iraqi

[Warpy]

2. Evaporation

would negate a lot of what any system of open diversion channels would accomplish, and those are the only economically feasible ways to do transcontinental water, which is what you're suggesting.

Also consider that to get from the flooded east coast to the drought stricken areas of the southwest, you're going to have to push that water up a mile or so even if you avoid the peaks.

Here in NM, we do have an ongoing project to divert some of the water from the San Juan river on the other side of the continental divide to the Rio Grande via tunnels and pipelines, but that is strictly a local deal with only a couple of hundred miles to be traversed and little change in altitude.

The desert is what it is, and importing an east coast water supply would destroy it. Although I do miss the kind of garden I had on Cape Cod, I would be loath to try to duplicate it here. It just doesn't belong, and neither does flood water from that area.

[The2ndWheel]

3. We're just never going to stop

until we're all completely isolated from the natural world. Oh well, who gives a damn. Bring on the Bubble City.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. The big probblem would seem...

to be collecting that rainfall.

There are all sorts of plans in the works to import water from Canada, tap Lake Michigan and such, but nobody's going to do it till the last minute, and then the real fighting over water starts.

New Jersey is supplied primarily with groundwater, and there are about 100 geologists working in Trenton trying to figure out how much is left. They know the aquifers are way down, but don't know when or if they'll dry up.

The Oglala aquifer in the Midwest supplies cities and farms with water, but they're seeing sinkholes and brown water where it just isn't working any more. It if dries up...

Asia and Africa are trying to deal with water supplies, but it looks grim there, too.

Saudi Arabia once had a desalinization plant working to get fresh water from seawater, and even tried towing icebergs. Ultimately, that sort of thing is probably where we'll be going.