How rain could effect the economy, your thoughts??

Just read the post about prayers for rain and how it was all coming at once and it got me to thinking again (yeah, that can be dangerous I know...LOL) Seriously, I was just curious as to what ya'll think of my idea.

With the rain never seeming to come down where it's really needed and causing so many floods it seems like we ought to have a way to move the water around to where it is needed. I mean we can move electricity, oil, natural gas, etc, all over the country, why not water. I say why not find a nice HUGE desolate, empty, place somewhere and make a HUGE lake to store a HUGE amount of water. Then from lakes, rivers, etc all over the country run pipelines to this man made storage facility. When we have flooding/excess water in one part of the country at least some of it could be pumped into storage and then pumped right back out to other places that really needed the water but didn't have it.
Don't get me wrong I can see problems with this, especially if it was government run, but even then think about it. Not only would it help some areas that were prone to flooding but also help areas that were prone to drought. Think what having pretty much all the water you wanted would do for the futures of farming communities in areas that haven't had enough rain. Too, right now, it would create alot of jobs simply building the lake, and then more on top of that in multiple states, running the pipelines, building pumping stations, etc. If nobody in the private sector wanted to get involved then do it as a public works project similar to what they did in the early part of the century.

I know there would be problems with any undertaking this large but I think that any problems would be far outweighed by the good done in the future. Just curious as to ya'lls thoughts.

Considering that the survival of the entire planet depends on 8" of topsoil and timely rains, quite a lot. Think about it it, many of us on this board are still actively involved in farming. If we don't grow it, who's going to have it to eat or wear?
Paul

I'm not sure if it is a workable idea or not. It would be impossible to keep the government from getting involved (no good ever comes from government involvements). But I would think a little smaller setups with the ability to pipe between the smaller setups would be better than one big lake trying to pipe everywhere there is a need. Just thinking out loud on what is probably a good concept but the devil WILL be in the details. Mike

How about Lake Grand Canyon?

Hey Mike in Ohio, ever drive on an interstate? This may come as a shock to you but the government was just a tiny bit involved. I sorta like em for getting around the country myself.

Have you been out playin with Algore again?

That's your example of efficient government?
The interstate highway system?

Here's the problem: The parts of our country that need water are, for the most part, at relatively high elevations. For example, the plains of western Kansas, western Nebraska and eastern Colorado are between 2000 and 5000 feet in elevation. But most of the water is close to sea level. For example, the Great Lakes are only a few hundred feet above sea level. To get that water to the High Plains would be phenomenally expensive, since it has to be pumped uphill.

Now a great deal of water is pumped from the western slope of the Colorado Rockies to eastern Colorado, But because it is pumped from reservoirs at high elevations, all of the power used to pump the water is recovered by turbines on the eastern end of the aqueduct.

In addition to the technical issues, the political issues are also sticky. No state wants to send its water to another state.

How about this: the government gets out of the subsidy business for Ag? Then maybe we wouldn't see people raising crops in places that don't naturally have the water.

At least you're thinking. Your suggestion made me think there's a railroad that goes by a quarter mile away. At least railroads go through farm fields already. Imagine a long train of tank cars parked emptying into adjacent fields. Feasible yes, practical no. How many tons of water go on just 1 acre for an inch? I think it would be more practical to make a lot of large farm ponds to irrigate from, but again cost prohibitive, and that doesn't solve the too wet condition right now.

Grand Canyon has already been done. As far as another place to store extra water, how about New Orleans?

That is basically what the United States Bureau of Reclamation already does all across the western states.

This is already being done in some areas. They have reduced the Colorado river discharge to a trickle because of irrigated farms in the Arizona and California desert area.
The Mississippi river basin has plenty of water with a average discharge of about 4.5 million gallons a second.
The problem is getting this water to areas that need it. Not only would you need to pump it up hill for hundreds of miles but you would need to clean the sediment out of it first so you would not damage the pumps.

I really think it would be more feasible to curve our use of good farm land for other purposes than it would be to make other areas into good farm land.

California is doing this on a pretty big scale already, and they are in deep trouble ecconomically.

Free market will take care of the problems, ecconomy would e fine.

You try to 'control' the ecconomy by shipping water all across the country, and _then_ the ecconomy goes in the tank. No incentive for anyone to do anything.

--->Paul