by Peter Mertz
DENVER, the United States, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Ideas to capture water from America's largest and most significant water system, the Mississippi River Basin, and divert it more than 1,000 miles westward to relieve historic drought conditions have been circulating earnestly for the past decade. Still, none have received the angry backlash as a recent piece in Yahoo News.
As of Sunday, Yahoo's article, published earlier this month, had garnered over 220 favorable responses and around 3,700 dislikes, with comments still coming in almost daily.
"As a nation, we have seemingly lost our appetite for large projects. I don't think this one will overcome that reluctance," said John Homer, a retired construction engineer from Indianapolis, Indiana.
Homer's analysis refuting the economic and logistic feasibility of constructing a 1,600-mile-long aqueduct was published by both Yahoo and Desert News on Sunday but narrowly focused on one possible route for the water.
"This idea of getting water from the Mississippi River to the West is puerile and would be inefficient. Who is supposed to pay for this? I guess I will be one of them," emoted Raleigh Perry of Buford, Georgia, earlier this month, who said he was "born and educated on the banks of the Mississippi" and told the parched southwest to "build desalination plants and get water from the Pacific Ocean."
The Mississippi River splits America from east to west, serving as the central artery for transporting agricultural products. It represents 40 percent of the water output in America's lower 48 states, according to Study.com.
Several plans have been suggested for water migration, from one a year ago calling for a pipeline from the Missouri River "somewhere between Chamberlain and Yankton, South Dakota, to La Poudre Pass Lake in Colorado," posted by Yahoo last year.
"Sending water from the Missouri River westward to the beginning of the Colorado River would help parts of the Southwest region meet their increased water needs. The pipeline could also reduce the flooding both along the Missouri and the Mississippi River basins that occur quite frequently," it added.
The flood relief benefit of a water redirect has gained traction recently, with several people suggesting that it would be better to divert Mississippi River water further south, north of New Orleans, where regular flooding from the river has caused billions of dollars of damage in recent years.
As state governments and municipalities launch into emergency mode with the Colorado River's two most critical reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, reaching record low levels -- with no relief in sight from a historic drought -- the idea to divert Mississippi River water has received significant attention.
According to a study released Thursday by the journal Science, the record low levels of water at Mead and Powell, also the country's two largest reservoirs, may be the "new normal" unless action is taken. ■
