They have already done the calcualtions, the water is there. i'd really have to wonder about the assumptions they made in those calculations. if the warming trend continues and the catch basin of the miss dries up much the amount of water in the river is going to drop potentially quite drastically. i've already seen reports of barges grounding and commercial traffic being disrupted by low water levels and i doubt we've seen anything like the peak effects of global warming yet.

"think you've conflated 2 separate problems pseudo. the sw draws a good hunk of its water from the aquifer while the great plains further north don't rely on that rather they are basically at the mercy of what falls from the sky for moisture. the great plains "problem" is that it's been abnormally wet and mild for the last century or so. remember that when lewis and clark went across they described it as the great american desert due to the lack of rainfall they experienced. if the weather patterns normalize around historical levels agriculture in the west is going to have to change how it does business quite significantly." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3754520.stm#ogallala "Ogallala Aquifer Ninety-five percent of the United States' fresh water is underground. One crucial source is a huge underground reservoir, the 800-mile Ogallala aquifer which stretches from Texas to South Dakota and provides an estimated third of all US irrigation water. The aquifer was formed over millions of years, but has since been cut off from its original natural sources and is being steadily depleted. In some areas its level is dropping by three to five feet (90 - 150cm) a year. Estimates for its remaining lifespan vary in different areas, ranging from 60 to 250 years. Many farmers in the Texan High Plains, which rely particularly on the underground source, are now turning away from irrigated agriculture as they become aware of the hazards of over-pumping." Sorry I'll be more specific next time, and they do feed off the Ogallala somewhat along with the fact the Ole Miss diversion would also be added to what you are saying. I was just lumping all the water problems together.

"i'd really have to wonder about the assumptions they made in those calculations. if the warming trend continues and the catch basin of the miss dries up much the amount of water in the river is going to drop potentially quite drastically. i've already seen reports of barges grounding and commercial traffic being disrupted by low water levels and i doubt we've seen anything like the peak effects of global warming yet." I guess we will just have to trust that the engineers know what they are doing.

"this isn't the kind of thing that generates big headlines like katrina. things are just gonna dry up and blow away over the next generation or so." LOL. Say that again when Los Vegas starts being emptied.

You do know that by them putting in the pipe they can angle it how they want right? when you want to get water somewhere it comes down to gravity fed or pumps. given the scale of the project pumps are dubious which leaves gravity fed which means you have to pull the water from somewhere uphill from the destination. if you look at contour maps you see that if you want to deliver water inland of the coast you wind up diverting water a long way upstream of the mouth of the miss. this drags in more stakeholders in the river flow and just escalates the squabbling.

"when you want to get water somewhere it comes down to gravity fed or pumps. given the scale of the project pumps are dubious which leaves gravity fed which means you have to pull the water from somewhere uphill from the destination. if you look at contour maps you see that if you want to deliver water inland of the coast you wind up diverting water a long way upstream of the mouth of the miss. this drags in more stakeholders in the river flow and just escalates the squabbling." I agree with you Ehran, it's an easy engineering problem though and is not going to be the only part of the solution. Of all the people reading this only you have shown you have some semblance of an idea of the stakes we are talking about. When the problem is shown in all its gory detail something will be done, the Government will have no choice. Factor in all the problems of water diversion its still gonna cost alot less then any other solutions. "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."---JFK

the mass media likes big panic inducing headlines and the time frame of this problem isn't conducive to that. it's not like a rattler bite it's a python strangling you. you'll see opinion pieces and discovery channel shows on it but i don't see it getting much play on the evening news. how panic stricken are folks going to get by the news that this year the aquifer sunk 7' while last year it only sank 6' 10"?

"the mass media likes big panic inducing headlines and the time frame of this problem isn't conducive to that. it's not like a rattler bite it's a python strangling you. you'll see opinion pieces and discovery channel shows on it but i don't see it getting much play on the evening news. how panic stricken are folks going to get by the news that this year the aquifer sunk 7' while last year it only sank 6' 10"?" The problem is that it won't become a media event until it really starts to hit full swing on the droughts. At that time they will start going through towns with "Special Reports" talking about the once thriving community that is now vanishing, bla bla bla, you know that spiel. They'll start interviewing the people still there trying to eek out a living, too headstrong and stubborn to leave their home. I agree I might have the time scale mistaken, but sooner or later the media blitz will happen. It is simply too tasty of a story for them to ignore.

my thinking on this is that by the time the gov't stirs it's stumps it will be too late to do anything useful about the problem. engineering on this kind of scale takes a lot of time no matter how much money you throw at it. by the time anyone in washington starts getting excited they will have squandered the prep time they could have had. the next problem is pretty simple where the dickens does the water needed come from? i really doubt oregon is going to let the corps divert the columbia, canada certainly isn't going to sign off on the mackenzie and so forth. the only source out there is desalinated sea water and that looks to be much too expensive to be practical barring a breakthrough on that front.

"my thinking on this is that by the time the gov't stirs it's stumps it will be too late to do anything useful about the problem. engineering on this kind of scale takes a lot of time no matter how much money you throw at it. by the time anyone in washington starts getting excited they will have squandered the prep time they could have had." I agree they won't act till it is too late, just like they didn't act on the New Orleans levee's. The thing is they will end up acting anyways and it will take decades for the lands they let die out to be repopulated. If they don't fix the New Orleans levee's then I will believe they won't fix this. "the next problem is pretty simple where the dickens does the water needed come from? i really doubt oregon is going to let the corps divert the columbia, canada certainly isn't going to sign off on the mackenzie and so forth. the only source out there is desalinated sea water and that looks to be much too expensive to be practical barring a breakthrough on that front." We are looking at this from the viewpoint of a future problem, until it is a current crisis you cannot say they will not do this or that. People can be bought off, you just need the right incentive.