2 Jul 2022 4:10 pm
We could fill Lake Powell in less than a year with an aqueduct from Mississippi River
Reader submissions
Regarding the Mississippi water letters of June 26, citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure don’t need all that water. All it does is cause flooding and massive tax expenditures to repair and strengthen dikes. The best solution would be for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure on the Mississippi to Lake Powell, fill it, and then send more water from there down the Colorado to fill lake Mead.
About 4.5 million/gals a second flow past that structure on the Mississippi. As mentioned, New Orleans has a problem with that much water anyway, so let’s divert 250,000 gallons/sec to Lake Powell, which currently has a shortage of 5.5 trillion gallons. This would take 254 days to fill. Lake Mead has a somewhat larger shortage, about 8 trillion gallons, but it could be filled in about 370 days at 250,000 gallons/sec.
Within a year and eight months of the aqueduct’s finish, both reservoirs would be filled and most of the Southwest’s water problems would be gone. We built a California aqueduct that saved Southern California and a crude oil pipeline across Alaska that were far more difficult than this proposal.
Don Siefkes, San Leandro
https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion ... 751467001/
Reader submissions
Regarding the Mississippi water letters of June 26, citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi south of the Old River Control Structure don’t need all that water. All it does is cause flooding and massive tax expenditures to repair and strengthen dikes. The best solution would be for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build an aqueduct from the Old River Control Structure on the Mississippi to Lake Powell, fill it, and then send more water from there down the Colorado to fill lake Mead. About 4.5 million/gals a second flow past that structure on the Mississippi. As mentioned, New Orleans has a problem with that much water anyway, so let’s divert 250,000 gallons/sec to Lake Powell, which currently has a shortage of 5.5 trillion gallons. This would take 254 days to fill. Lake Mead has a somewhat larger shortage, about 8 trillion gallons, but it could be filled in about 370 days at 250,000 gallons/sec.
Within a year and eight months of the aqueduct’s finish, both reservoirs would be filled and most of the Southwest’s water problems would be gone. We built a California aqueduct that saved Southern California and a crude oil pipeline across Alaska that were far more difficult than this proposal.
Don Siefkes, San Leandro
https://www.desertsun.com/story/opinion ... 751467001/