re: How concerned are you about the water levels in Lake Mead?

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We envision a major combined federal and private hallmark program for the nation — an Interstate Water System (IWS), which would rival in importance and transformative potential the Interstate Highway System, whose formation was championed by President Dwight Eisenhower. America already moves some water and stores it in man-made lakes, and the IWS would be designed to expand America’s water-related infrastructure by crossing state boundaries to transport water from where America has an abundance of it to where it is needed. With modifications and expansions over time, no part of America would find itself short of water.

The IWS is practicable. Assume that an initial goal might be doubling the water flow, averaging about 20,000 cubic feet per second, to Colorado River system reservoirs. Pumping Mississippi River water to an altitude of 4,000 to 5,000 feet likely would be needed to supply reservoirs Lake Mead (altitude 1,100 feet) and/or Lake Powell (altitude 3,600 feet). We estimate that it would require fewer than ten power plants of typical one-gigawatt size to provide the energy to move water halfway across the nation to double the flow of the Colorado River. (Gravity-driven flow turning turbines below its reservoir lakes would eventually regenerate much of the input energy required.)

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The implications of an IWS would be enormous. It would create innumerable jobs, provide many construction and other business opportunities, and facilitate national growth and development, including greatly enhanced development of many lightly populated dry areas in the West and Southwest.

The IWS would evolve over years, as did the Interstate Highway System. We should start building it now.

Joseph D. Schulman, M.D., a scientist, former professor, and Chairman of Genetics & IVF Institute, lives in the American East and West. John P. Schaefer, Ph.D. is a chemist, former President of the University of Arizona, and Chairman of REhnu, Inc. Henry I. Miller is a physician, molecular biologist, and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.

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another proposal...

But the latest person to see large-scale Great Lakes water diversions as a future likelihood might make some in the Midwest do a double take — the chief water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist and senior water scientist at JPL, raised the possibility in an April 4 interview with ideastream.org, a nonprofit owner and operator of Cleveland public broadcasting stations. Famiglietti was in Ohio to speak as part of a lecture series at Case Western Reserve University.

Because of the Great Lakes' abundance of potable, fresh water, "you might imagine that there's a giant bull's-eye that can be seen from space that's sitting above the Great Lakes — meaning it's a target area, in a sense, for the rest of the country," Famiglietti said.

"Because there's so much fresh water, you can imagine that 50 years from now ... there might actually be a pipeline that brings water from the Great Lakes to Phoenix. I think that that's part of our future."

Those are fighting words around the Great Lakes.

"I don't think people in this region believe that is part of our future," said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of the nonprofit For Love of Water, or FLOW, which works to protect the Great Lakes.As far-fetched as the diversion scenario might be, it's not impossible. When the U.S. sought a shipping channel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the early 1900s, it split a country, Panama, in half with a canal. There's also an American flag and a dune buggy or two up on the moon that testify to the nation's ability to accomplish the costly and far-fetched when it decides it really wants to. Therein lies the lingering fear for those who think a large-scale water diversion from the Great Lakes would be disastrous.

"When we hear news about a NASA scientist even pondering the issue of whether the Great Lakes are for sale, it really heightens importance of us here to resolve the remaining, critical issues that the Great Lakes Compact has not yet resolved," Kirkwood said.


They say it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, which is expensive, but compared to the atrocious amounts we have doled out to foreign countries, bullshite social programs, and financial institutions, its a bargain.

Not concerned. I am still not completely convinced that this isn’t the Lord’s punishment on California for their lawlessness.

Not at all.

Now that I'm living in AZ I'm certainly concerned. My area doesn't use water from Lake Mead and is actually a net contributor to the Colorado River but that doesn't mean there won't be massive effects here if everyone abandons Phoenix (which shouldn't exist in the first place).

As many poke fun to Louisianians post major storms "why would you live where you know hurricanes hit frequently"

Why would you choose to live in a desert?

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Lake Powell sits below 30% capacity too

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Most restrictions based on Mead levels, but they also incorporated a balancing between mead and Powell to keep levels high enough for power generation. A while back they had to decrease flow from Powell (not sure for how long and may still be happening) to accomplish this and more recently also take water from flaming gorge to increase flow into Powell (through green river) to help increase Powell’s level as well.

Both are in same trouble, but it’s the guaranteed levels for consumption by lower states and Mexico from Mead and below that are more of an issue than amounts for upper states.

The normal and restricted guaranteed amounts for California, Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico have to be reduced to fit more recent and accurate flow estimates. Colorado might need to be reduced within the upper states budgets. The defined Surpluses from Upper states that lower states got to use should have been defined to allow more storage and less usage by California and to a lesser extent AZ. California usage has leveled out, but they were getting extra for decades. It was becoming their norm.

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Why would you choose to live in a dessert?

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Is there a wet line in the Pacific Ocean heading eastward towards California ???

Need to pack up the SW deadbeats and send them to New York