

Ask HN: California Drought. Why not take water from the states that are floods? - rgovind


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dragonwriter
Because:

(1) There's no existing infrastructure that allows this, and by the time it
was built, both the drought and the floods would be long over.

(2) To the extent large scale water distribution infrastructure is reasonably
practical, anyway, it probably _doesn 't_ involve crossing the continental
divide. Which it would have to connect the places in the US actually
experiencing flooding to California.

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Nadya
How do you propose to capture and transport the water?

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rgovind
I am not well versed, but I am assuming there are interstate pipelines.

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dragonwriter
> I am not well versed, but I am assuming there are interstate pipelines.

The nearest thing to interstate pipelines for water are generally _rivers_
(there are canals, but most of even the major canals that I am aware of are
intrastate, not interstate.)

Good luck finding _either_ crossing the Continental Divide.

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stephengillie
Are any states currently flooded?

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sjs382
Louisiana, all the time.

 _Source: Resident._

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stephengillie
As Americans, we like pipelines, right? Can we make a cross-Southwest pipeline
to move some of that water to CA?

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greenyoda
To get the water from Louisiana to California, which are on opposite sides of
the Continental Divide[1], you'd have to pump it uphill over the Rocky
Mountains. That would take a lot of energy. You can see this by looking at
this topographical map of the U.S.:

[http://www.united-states-map.com/us402112.htm](http://www.united-states-
map.com/us402112.htm)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Amer...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Divide_of_the_Americas)

~~~
stephengillie
If we had a system to reclaim the energy as it flowed down the other side -
like hydroelectric generator to power an electric water pump - it might not be
too expensive.

I suppose an alternative - getting a modestly-sized (6 foot diameter?) drill
and drilling from mid-Oklahoma to Eastern-Arizona - wouldn't be a lot cheaper.
The tunnel would _only_ have to be approximately 1000 miles long.

