Water, Public Works and the Needs of a Great Nation
By James P. Pinkerton
Contributing columnist and writer “The American Conservative”/FOX News Political Contributor
Should Americans be protected, to the maximum extent possible, from disastrous floods? And should economic development be spread out, as widely as possible, across the U.S.? Most Americans would surely answer “yes” to both questions. But unfortunately, the answer we hear from the politicians is different: No. Sorry, the well-being of Americans isn’t worth the effort.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government, despite its many failings, is giving a different answer, in terms of an important issue: water. Water is a problem in that geographically huge nation—just as it is here—and the Beijing regime is addressing that vital concern.
Here’s a revealing article that appeared in Friday’s USA Today, under the headline, “China carves paths to address flooding, drought.” As reporter Calum MacLeod explained:
“Floods in south China have killed at least 176 people this month and forced the evacuation of 1.6 million people. Yet the deadly start of China’s rainy season masks a bigger crisis: not enough water.
To tackle the water shortage threatening China’s breakneck development, the nation is constructing the world’s largest water diversion project.
The dramatic scheme aims to defy the laws of nature on a scale that only China would attempt. The plan is to draw water from the flood-prone south, and send it through channels, tunnels and pump stations up to the drought-ridden north.”
As the USA Today piece detailed, over the past six years, China has been working on its South-to-North Water Transfer Project, due for completion by 2011. If the plan works, China will have less flooding in the south, and more water in the north. What’s not to like?
Now here’s a question: Why don’t we have something like that for us, here in America? Why not a similar diversion of water, from where there’s too much to where there’s not enough? Here, the East tends to be wet, and the West is dry. So why not a pipeline or two to carry all these flood waters and potential flood waters, to the West?
Such ambitious public works projects were once a familiar part of American life. In the early 19th century, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton dug the Erie Canal, opening the way to the Great Lakes and beyond, making New York the Empire State. In the middle of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln and other wise politicians saw that railroads were the key to expansion and economic development. And in the 20th century, Presidents named Roosevelt dotted the country with public works, providing the country with amenities and electricity. Water, of course, was a big deal, which is why so many presidents and governors focused on dams and pipelines.
But in the past few decades, public-works progress has come to a halt. A strange-bedfellow combination of anti-growth environmentalists and anti-government libertarians has joined together to block needed investment in public works. The environmentalists, of course, oppose just about everything, because just about every kind of progress threatens their static Green vision. And the libertarian budget-cutters oppose just about any kind of spending; they are unable to see the difference between a growth-restricting transfer payment and a growth-increasing development project.
In the meantime, the costs of doing nothing continue to rise. Damage from the latest flood is in the many billions, according to Reuters. (And on a more personal level, you can figure out the cost of a flood in your own home here.)
So what to do? The immediate answer will be to build more levees along the Mississippi and other flood-prone rivers. But such levees have a perverse effect: By confining rising waters into narrow sluiceways upstream, they increase the ferocity of the flood downstream. It’s just elementary fluid dynamics: The water has to go somewhere.
So rather than try to manage rising tides as they bubble and trouble south, toward the Gulf of Mexico, why don’t we try something entirely different? Why don’t we capture these excess flood waters—and perhaps some of the normal waters, too—and send the precious water west, not south? Why don’t we take a page from China, carrying the water to where it’s desperately needed?
Why not build a water channel or pipeline from, say, Iowa all the way to Colorado? The Iowans have too much water, and the Coloradans have too little. It’s a match made in heaven—less flooding in the wet Midwest, more irrigation in the dry Mountain West. To be sure, the environmentalists will hate the idea, but they hate everything.
Will such a public works project be expensive? Sure it will, and that will bother some fiscal hawks. But once it becomes clear that suffering through “hundred year floods” every few years is incredibly costly, most deficit-watchers will come around, because they will see that fixing a problem is better than paying for its consequences.
Creating an East-West Water Transfer Project for America will not be easy. And it won’t be cheap. But an Iowa under water, and a parched Mountain West, do not belong in the same great nation.
A great nation does what needs to be done.
Here in CA you can’t turn on local radio and TV without being nagged to “Be Water Wise” and conserve. Of course everybody knows the reason that we’re having problems is that there just isn’t the infrastructure to supply water to the godzillions of people who live here. And why not? Because the state govt. won’t do a thing about it. Politicians would rather whine and complain and blame someone else for problems than come up with a solution.
It’s the same problem with electricity here. We desperately need new power plants but we won’t build them. Add price controls like they have in LA’s DWP and you’ve got the rolling blackouts from a few years ago. What’s the stste government reaction? Pass laws on what kind of lightbulbs you can have in your house and turn over control of your thermostat to state agencies.
When the Romans needed water, they built aqueducts that were miles long by hand with nothing more sophisticated than a hammer and chisel. Many of which still stand and function today. I wish we could be as forward thinking as the people who lived 2,000 years ago.
Important note. The railroads were not a public works project. It was done privately and was probably the most significant change to our nation’s infrastructure thus far. If it were not for government regulation and union abuses (see CARSON, CLARENCE B., Throttling The Railroads), the railroads would be playing a role much more significant in our current distribution and transportation than it does currently.
The problem is almost never the lack of government action, unless we are talking about government acting to reduce its own involvement in things. In that latter case that is the answer more often than not.
What I think so many in the press miss is that Americans are never shocked or surprised at the failure of government action or failure in its preparation. We expect government to fail. We trust that the vital nature of things like law enforcement and national defense will preclude a tolerance for the failure that is so common everywhere else in government and that trust seems to be well placed. While some grand public work may sound nice it’s not going to make sense until it is some how tied to something more vital than protecting people from their own decisions.
I was at Lake Mead last year and will vouch for the need. It is ridiculous that every ten or fifteen years we have a major flood somewhere along the Mississippi yet we suffer from shortages elsewhere (even the east has shortages in areas due to drought). I don’t see this as the job of government, though they could certainly clear the red tape for the private sector to make this happen. Wouldn’t that be novel of our government - recognize a pain point and act to allow the pirvate sector to work its magic?
I believe there are currently too many roadblocks in place to allow such a thing to happen on the governmental level; opposition from “greens” whining about environmental disturbances as well as lack of willpower by legislators to support something that would, freankly, be a little risky, would require a group of private businesses to undertake this; there would be a lot of money to be made in selling the water transported thusly to drought-stricken areas. It’d be risky, it’d be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be done by the government.
Both sides of congress are tied into the green BS and will never let something so profound happen.
The world ended yesterday and your project is still some where in process CO never seen a drop of water from IA.
It seems the people of this country have forgotten what the founding fathers fought for. We have had our rights slowly eroded. Amazing how little public education actually educates people any more? What you propose to do is a good idea, but you have to look at from the point of view of who you are asking to do it the US Congress.
Step 1) Form a lobbyist group to push the proposal to congress.
Step 2) Wait for every Congress person involved to create a study commissions and what ever else.
Step 3) Figure out who is on board, and bribe the rest with enough money and benefits.
Step 4) Once threw committee wait to find out how much $$ you are going to have shell out to get past both houses.
Step 5) Once both sides pass it you have to have enough to get it threw a veto or be prepared with additional kick back funds to get the president to sign off.
Step 6) Once threw that you would have to repeat these steps in the states you propose to run threw.
Step 7) Project may be started and shut down due to environmentalists several times. So while the project is on going you may want to have enough money to cover the pay roll of several thousands workers each time it is shut down or find a quick way to replace them if you fire them every shut down.
Step
Totally sensible idea IMHO. In the Phoenix, AZ area you get used to seeing the canals, many of which I believe were constructed before Phoenix existed. Of course there it was simpler, using gravity feed from the mountains, but in a day and age when scientists are thinking about solar cells in space beaming electricity back to earth, & where we see photos of our probe on Mars, what part of it couldn’t we manage?
Do you seriously propose that we ship water over the Rocky Mountains or through them?
Very good idea, but I think we need a network of such canals taking water to any drought area not just the dry states in the west.
The rational should be old fashion American greed - turn dry areas into farm land and industrial use.
People can relocate to warm climates with abundant water.
Such projects would stimulate the economy and revitalize the construction industry in this time of housing slowdown.
To that we can converting ocean water to drinking water along the California coast and piping east to Arizona and Nevada.
We certainly have the technology. If the Europeans can bore a tunnel under the English Channel from two directions and meet in the middle, then surely we can go in one direction (east to west) and then connect to a distribution system. Consider it an underground Roman aquaduct equivalent in our lifetime. And it can be done deep enough to avoid impacting aquifers, natural caverns, etc, that might be the habitat for the “blind, speckled, six-toed” whatever that these environMENTALists would say we MIGHT impact in the endeavor.
I am a biologist and consider myself a conservationist. I have no qualms whatever that if faced with the survival of the human race versus some isolated lifeform in a cave or remote landmass, I will choose the former. If we do not survive, then we cannot protect our resources. However, there are those extremists that believe that mankind is a blight on the face of the Earth; the demise of the human race would bring great joy to them. For those that have such a belief that “man should go quietly into that night,” I say “You first.”
Why not build a water channel? It will never be done because it is a common sense solution. In Washington there is no common sense.
“Why don’t we capture these excess flood waters—and perhaps some of the normal waters, too—and send the precious water west, not south?” …..hmmm, probably because the South has experienced record drought for well over a year. In case no one has figured it out, weather patterns change. Floods do not occur every year and if anyone thinks that the “dry west” would be content with flood run-off every few years from the “wet east” they’re crazy. Once the west gets a taste for eastern water, they would demand more and more to fuel future growth because their needs are greater. After a while, it would become “a right.” I live in the South and I’m already seeing this water greed on a smaller scale. Lack of water resources have become so serious that more populous areas like Metro Atlanta (Northern GA) are advocating taking water from other states like Florida and Alabama, or even from rivers in South Ga to the detriment of those areas. The odd part is that these water hogs don’t feel a moments guilt for harming their neighbors because the justification is always “we need it more, we have more people.” By the way, I’m not one of the “GREENS” but I am offended that the west wants to solve it’s water problem at the expense of the east, by pretending that they are saving us from impending doom via floods. It is only a cover for a water grab. Here is a bit of logic. IF YOU NEED WATER, DON’T BUILD YOUR CITIES IN THE DESERT!
Irene;
Your last sentence said it perfect. I would expand on that. If you don’t want hurricane damage, move off of the beach. If you don’t want to be flooded out, don’t build your house on a river. If you don’t want to shake to death, don’t live near earthquakes.
People demand, demand, demand and then are pissed off when insurance won’t cover this or that. Tough Patooties. I want my tax money back.
Vote Ron Paul
God Bless
Frank Pytel
Colorado already has enough water. What we need are the dams to keep it from going to New Orleans where they don’t need it. The Greens are all over Glade Reservoir, the latest (modest) dam proposal for Fort Collins. It’s all about keeping Colorado a 3rd-world country and preventing development so the elitists can walk around and talk to the trees. The rest of us are far too busy trying to raise a family to get involved in advocacy. We don’t seem to notice until gasoline hits $4/gallon.
As an engineer, I think there are serious problems with the energy cost of lifting water from Iowa to Colorado - a vertical rise of 4000′. Much better to stop the water from going downhill in the first place. The Rockies pull most of the moisture out of the air during the winter - we just have to capture it before it goes downhill.
Irene has identified the problem.She has pointed out exactly what will happen.She failed to mention that Georgia is also thinking about usurping what is a part of Tennessee to get at a river there.Tennessee has done it’s water projects wisely and is now the target of the wasters in Atlanta.
J learn geography before making stupid comments.
Rocky Mountains are west of part of CO and IA is East of CO.
There for to build a water way from IA to CO you don’t have to go threw the mountains.
You would be going from IA threw most likely Nebraska, and Kansas to reach Eastern CO.
Last time I drove threw those 2 states they were mostly flat farm land. Not too many mountains.
CA can be fed from Washington, Oregon, and northern CA.
You could expand it from Eastern CO to Arizona and New Mexico parts of West texas and OK.
All with out going threw any high mountains.
Looking at this from a geographical standpoint, It doesn’t make sense to pump water from the low lying plains of the United States up to the high elevation of Colorado. You would have to have so many pumping stations that take up so much energy for not a lot of water. It isn’t cost effective. If you look at China, they are pumping water downhill; the southern part of China has a higher elevation than the northern part. That is cost effective because gravity is doing most of the work.
Read this article about North Dakota’s Garrison Diversion Project and multiply the problems and costs by ten thousand to get an idea just how likely any East-West water transfer would be. http://www.in-forum.com/specials/garrison/index.cfm?page=article&id=34871
Jim I’ve been saying this for the last 10 years but nobody really listens. It won’t be easy but the Federal Government of today couldn’t accomplish it. Hell they can’t agree to drill for oil when it’s pretty easy to see it needs to be done.
We will never be able to address any issues in the future. Simpley because of the cost. We cannot have ower cake and eatit to.
Min wage for a government employee is $40,000 to 300,000 When they retier with 90% pay that makes them a multi-millionair.Even the lowest paid service worker a meter reader for instance will requier over a million dollars to fund their retierment. NO privet sector employee will ever get close to that. Then we replace them and are still paying for the old service worker and every thing doubles. Citys, state, countys then request grants from the federal government to pave a road or sidewalk driveing up the deficets.
We simpley cannot keep doing this redicules bennifit package for service workers.
To equalize the huge spred in gov worker to privet sector worker. WE would have to reduce government saleries and bennifets by 75%.
The common unionists that occupy ower government have given themselves raises year after year to the point that they took us with out fireing a shot.
Great idea, let’s spend our way to a fix for problems caused by stupid people. I thought this guy was a conservative.
we have the greatest infrastucture of any country in the world. dams and lakes are built all over our nation to stock water and create energy. china is overpopulated extremely corrupt energy inefficient because its government does not give a damn about its peoples. your editorial is a negative piece and belongs in the trash.
The more I think about it the more I love this idea.
This is the USA; We can do anything. We built the Panama canal, Hoover Dam, Grand Cooley dam, The Tennessee Valley elctrification and water system.
This will be easy for us.
Let’s do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you that naive? The EPA has much to say about any such effort as you describe. Can’t build a dam or otherwise divert waters in this country anymore for fear of impacting an endangered cockroach or impacting a wetland.
I’d expect more research on your part before you start praising the slash and burn techniques used in China.
I don’t believe that Americans are *ever* protected to “to the maximum extent possible” for anything. It’s a duplicitous statement, typically used by politicians to elicit a visceral response.
“Well, of COURSE we want to do EVERYTHING possible for the children…” Etc.
But we don’t. We do what we can afford. We weigh the options, balancing the pros and the cons of the alternatives, and live our lives that way.
I believe that’s called “freedom,” no?
There are some states in this union of ours that don’t even require motorcycle helmets. You can own a handgun in Texas without any kind of license. Fireworks are legal in some places.
Has the Republic failed? Do you see tanks in the streets?
The people of Florida don’t owe the people of Iowa levees, any more than the people of Iowa owe the people of Florida sea walls. If the people of Florida want sea walls to keep the ocean out, they should build them - with local tax dollars. If levees will make Iowa farms more productive, then the taxes required to build them shouldn’t be an issue. The locals, being rational, will gladly pay for them.
Very few public good warrant national attention, because very few of them offer national benefits. If the benefit is localized, then the payment should come from where the benefit is received.
We used to call that “common sense.” The trouble is, common sense doesn’t make the pie big enough to steal slices from. Our friends in DC (and in State Capitals) can’t hide their earmarks so easily, if the pie is too small or easy to understand.
So we tell people in Alaska that they must to EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to support one of Bob Byrd’s many “Federal Projects” in West Virginia, while the people of West Virginia pay for “bridges to nowhere” in Alaska.
Nice racket. Tony Soprano would be envious…
How about engineering a way to divert excess water to supply the auquifers that feed vast areas of the West as opposed to delivering the water to the specific points of consumption. Reduction of costs and multiplication of those that benefit. No way that is going to happen if government has anything to do with it.
The issue is that public works projects in 21st century America ARE NOT oriented toward aleaviating an “infastructure” problem, but directed toward being a Federal jobs program ( ala Obama) with all the attendent issues ( ie. Davis-Bacon, minority set asides, Congressional earmarks, a project for all 435 Congressional districts).
Such a Trans Mississippi program such as Mr. Pinkerton endorses would be tax $$ down the rat hole after our current govenment finished handling the appropriation.