Opinion: Diverting water from the Missouri River:

The Columbia Tribune, via The AP

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

From The Columbia Daily Tribune, Dec. 27, 2012:

For years, upriver and downriver interests have argued over use of Missouri River water. Now a third option looms that could confound the issue further: diversion of water to parched Western states by way of a pipeline.

As a general proposition, the idea makes sense, allocating the nation's water supply to most advantageous uses. In the Great Flood of 1993, millions of gallons surging beyond the banks of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers could have been relocated to huge storage basins in the West with benefit to both areas. In normal times, when plenty of water fills the Missouri, nobody would object to diversion through a treatment plant and pipeline headed west.

Of course, it's not that simple. The proposed pipeline would cost $11.2 billion and take 30 years to build, but for such a basic improvement in the nation's infrastructure, cost should not be a stopper. Water supply could be the most important natural resource issue in coming years.

An argument would ensue in years when drought plagues upriver and downriver areas, leaving little support for yet another diversion argument, but without benefit of access to historic aqua data, I'm sure most of the time water could successfully be sent from here to there with benefit to both. I mean, why blow up the Bird's Point Levee near New Madrid to let floodwater out of the Mississippi if the water could be sent to Arizona and California instead?

A pipeline sending treated water to the West sounds like a good idea, but don't count on hearing the pumps anytime soon. The more desperate the situation becomes out West, the more serious the discussion will become.

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loveableleo1971 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Wow.

Sounds like a good idea to me, if they can run pipelines all over the country, why not water lines too?  It might cost a bit, but which would be cheaper in the long run, building the pipeline, or paying billions of dollars per year on flood recovery? We receive enough rainfall in the entire US that we should have a more balanced way of distributing and storing the excess.  It's a shame that when the Missouri was flooded in the past couple of years, that water could not have been diverted, might have helped save prime farmland from turning into a huge sand box.

Paroquet 4 months, 3 weeks ago

It's bad practice and poor policy pumping waters, treated or not, outside watershed barriers. Touting it as a flood control measure is inane propagandizing. It is said in the opinion itself; "Water supply could be the most important natural resource issue in coming years."

So when the issue becomes the resource being pumped, who sets the rate per gallon? How about gallons per capita, other affected industries and resource benefits from which the water is diverted for the coveted dollar value?

I'll throw my two cents down right here: The idea of doing this is completely insane.

JCnative 4 months, 3 weeks ago

I completely agree with Paroquet!

JCLifer 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Let the free market solve the problems with water. When it becomes too scarce and expensive out west, folks will stop moving there.

Paroquet 4 months, 3 weeks ago

What's been going on with depleting isn't really people as individuals. It is water intensive industries, most notably livestock, agriculture & agricultural products (like ethanol), that are the largest consumers. "Out west", western water law is a beast that, as a water expert in MO, I wouldn't even begin to wade through. Sending water over the hills from it's point of origin is not the answer. If an industry cannot sustain itself with available resources, or adapt to changing conditions, it adjusts product, production, or both, relocates, or dies.

Over exploitation is primarily to blame for shortages. As a local example, you can check with the City of Joplin and ask them by how much their water table has been depleted in the last 25 years, and the previous 100. They share an aquifer (groundwater/well water) with KS and OK. There was another I recollect in northern MO (Maryville or thereabouts) where an ethanol plant wasn't built because the water withdrawals would've forced the city to dig deeper wells (pinch yourself if you think that the industry would've footed the bill for the infrastructure improvements necessary.

There are many other options available for industry and individuals to reduce water consumption, and conserve waste water. That they haven't been investing in those and having knowledge of a looming shortage, just shows that they already can't manage their own resources in a manner that is sustainable.

Another consideration is water itself; it's free. You pay for treatment of drinking water and waste water -ONLY-. You don't pay a penny for the water. To whit; conservation methods used by my household are such we only ever pay the minimum bill for water utilities. Frankly, I wouldn't be opposed to a scaled charge per gallon over a certain amount, and credits for those who use less.

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