The entire west is under severe drought, from central Texas to California. California is an easy target, but the problems are everywhere and getting worse.
> In most of the state, the drought has not yet affected the water supply, but South Texas and areas served by reservoirs along the Rio Grande have already seen water shortage concerns, Neilsen-Gammon said, pointing to the Falcon Reservoir, which reached “historically low levels” this summer.
The Los Angeles watershed already extends 1,500 miles eastward, to the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains.
If you look at a population map of the Western US --- generally west of the 100th parallel --- what you're looking at is a political power map represented as the function of urban areas to secure water rights within an otherwise arid landscape.
Denver and the Front Range, Omaha, Salt Lake, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and the California cities along the coast (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco) and central valley (Stockton-Sacramento, Bakersfield, Fresno-Clovis-Visalia, Redding).
Oregon and Washington with the Wilamette and Columbia rivers are the exception.
Very expensive, and its been done a lot already, see the various large projects in California to bring water from the Owens and Sacramento Valley to socal. There were various projects discussed to bring water from further away but its expensive. Water is heavy and you need a lot of it.
I suspect there should be some open discussion about things akin to these, if not them exactly.
I have a sneaking suspicion that some of our issues are caused by the older projects having been incredibly massive in scope and daring, and now refusing to consider similar projects with what we have and know now.
For example, I'm not sure we'd even consider let alone build the Oroville or Hoover dam today. That may be a good thing ... or maybe it's not even considered.
