The former President’s plan to bring water to the California desert is, like a lot of his promises, a goofy pipe-dream.
In an apparent effort to address the pressing issue of California water shortages, Trump said the following: “You have millions of gallons of water pouring down from the north with the snow caps and Canada, and all pouring down and they have essentially a very large faucet. You turn the faucet and it takes one day to turn it, and it’s massive, it’s as big as the wall of that building right there behind you. You turn that, and all of that water aimlessly goes into the Pacific (Ocean), and if they turned it back, all of that water would come right down here and right into Los Angeles,” he said.
Amidst his weird, almost poetic rambling, the “very large faucet” Trump seems to have been referring to is the Columbia River. The Columbia runs from a lake in British Columbia, down through Oregon and eventually ends up in the Pacific Ocean. Trump’s apparent plan is to somehow divert water from the Columbia and get it all the way down to Los Angeles. However, scientific experts who have spoken to the press have noted that not only is there currently no way to divert the water from the Oregon River to southern California, but creating such a system would likely be prohibitively expensive and inefficient.
It’s not impossible as many are thinking. However I would never vote for another Republican lying bastard asshole ever again. But think about how we move oil around the country besides stupid trains. We use pipelines. So now just build one and fill it with water rather than oil. It won’t pay for itself because the price of water is so much lower than oil. But if you all want some water, it’s just a long ass straw.
It’s still a stupid idea. Taking the runoff from a mountain and pumping it thousands of miles is more expensive than getting water from natural aquifers locally. Heck, even building a local desalination plant and turning saltwater from the city’s coast is cheaper than this giant pipeline idea. There’s a reason NYC doesn’t need to build a pipe all the way from Niagara Falls.
Well I will leave it to you to turn the faucet as large as the building behind you in a day. If you fail to do it in a day… Which doesn’t exist, and therefore impossible, come back and let me know how it isnt impossible
They sont have any pipelines running into California because the terrain makes them prohibitedly expensive. If BP and Exxon Mobile say it is cheaper to import Saudi crude to California because it is too expensive to pipe Texas crude, then there is no way. Canada has one pipeline to connect Albertam oil to Vancouver, but it is so expensive to pipe that oil across the Canadian Rockies that the pipe it downhill to Saskatchewan where it can then be pipped downhill all the way to Texas. Pipelines across mountains are just not feasible unless you are trying to move stuff from the top of the mountain to the bottom.
Much like oil it would probably be easier to haul the water via train than make a pipe which can cover that terrain.
The issue is how much water people actually use on a given day. The average American uses 82 gallons of water every day. Los Angeles (not the surrounding cities or suburbs) needs an average of 320 million gallons of water to meet just consumer water requirements every day. Thats 10,617 train cars or 16 LR1 Oil tankers a day for just water, for just the city of Los Angeles. The only feasible solution is discouraging people from living where there isn’t any water.
Oh, I 100% agree. Trains are not feasible. They’re just more feasible than a pipe over that kond of terrain.