08/17/2026
Some thoughts about water.
Can we fix WATER for the Desert Southwest?
While its no secret in the Desert Southwest that we have been in drought conditions for a numbers of years, is there a man made option that can be done to help alleviate it? Can the administration in Washington get a solution over the hump to be built?
Population in the Southwest part of the United States has been growing very fast for the last 20 years. During that period of time Arizona has added almost 2 million people. In Nevada about another 900,000 people. Meanwhile, Southern California is home to roughly 23 million people. Just in Southern California, southern Nevada and Arizona, we have more than 30 million people.
How important is water? Obviously people need water to live. To drink, to bathe, to wash our clothes and many other uses. But one of the most important uses of water is to grow food. From Google: California grows nearly half of the USA’s vegetables and over 75% of its fruits and nuts. Arizona produces roughly 25% of all USA’s lettuce and leafy greens annually and together with Southern California, supplies up to 90-95% of the USA’s leafy green vegetables during the winter months. A lot of these vegetables are grown in southwest Arizona near Yuma, AZ and in the Imperial Valley of Southern California and along the Colorado River moving north toward Blythe, California. The Colorado River is used to irrigate all of these farms. This is near the very southern end of the Colorado River within the United States, so it is very important that we are able to keep moving water to this area.
The water is not only important for people to live and to grow our food, but it also generates electricity for millions of people all over the Desert Southwest. The Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell, the Hoover Dam that creates Lake Mead, the Davis Dam that creates Lake Mohave, The Parker Dam that creates Lake Havasu, and the Headgate Rock Dam, just south of Parker, AZ, all generate electricity.
What we need is a long-term solution that be used whenever needed.
People may have said it before, build a pipeline. I started to think about that. What if we could build a pipeline from the Mississippi River near St. Louis to Page, Arizona to go into Lake Powell? If you look at a map there are no major cities in the way or other infrastructure that you couldn’t build around. Yeah, its far, its roughly 1200 miles as a crow flies. Could it be done and be done quickly? Of course it could. Think about this. In the US we built the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline and its 800 miles long. Don’t forget really bad weather conditions for a large part of the year. The Keystone XL pipeline that was going to be built before an executive order by the previous administration in Washington killed it was going to be 1200 miles long. The Chevron led pipeline that was built from the Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan to the Black Sea was about 940 miles long. Amazingly it was built in only 2 ½ years!! The longest pipeline ever built by man was the China West – East Gas Pipeline spanning over 5400 miles! There is also a pipeline built from Kazakhstan to China that is named the Central Asia gas pipeline which covers about 1139 miles. This pipeline has a capacity to carry about 160 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. This is roughly equal to about 40 billion gallons of water per day!!!(source, Google)
So, if we could build a pipeline from the Mississippi River near St. Louis, to Page, AZ maybe we could draw about 5-million-acre feet per year from the Mississippi. This amount only adds up to about 1.2% of the total annual flow of the river, which just empties out almost all of that water in the Gulf anyway. If there are heavy rains or floods on the upper Mississippi River maybe a larger draw amount could help alleviate the flooding quicker? (1 acre foot is equal to 325,850 gallons) (source Google)
Would it be expensive? Of course it would, but what is the alternative to running out of water in the Southwest part of the USA? Would we decide to not grow food for one year, or more? Would millions of people need to move to another area? Think of the property prices falling like a rock if that were to happen.
We need the water and until the natural system of additional snow melt and rain arrives, we need to be prepared for continued drought conditions.
Think of how many good paying jobs would be created to build this pipeline. When the previous administration eliminated the Keystone XL pipeline, more than 8000 jobs were gone, overnight, with the stroke of a pen!
Thousands of people would be able to get good paying jobs, and within a few years we could have another source for water for the Desert Southwest that would otherwise just flow out into the Gulf. Water to support a very important area for growing food for the USA and support the 30 million people, businesses and families who call this area home.
Do you have any thoughts on this?
