“The drought is so critical that this recent rainfall is a little like finding a $20 bill when you’ve lost your job and you’re being evicted from your house,” said Rhett Larson, an Arizona State University professor of water law.
Arizona is urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its flow.
Just this past summer, the idea caused a firestorm of letters to the editor at a California newspaper. But interest spans deeper than that. Most recently, the Arizona Legislature passed a measure in 2021 urging Congress to investigate pumping flood water from the Mississippi River to the Colorado River to bolster its flow.
People walk toward Tower Rock to check out the attraction normally surrounded by the Mississippi River and only accessible by boat, Oct. 19, 2022, in Perry County, Mo. Amid a major drought in the Western U.S., a proposed solution comes up repeatedly: large-scale river diversions, including pumping Mississippi River water to parched states.
Under the analyzed scenario, water would be conveyed to Colorado’s Front Range and areas of New Mexico to help fulfill water needs. It would cost at least $1,700 per acre-feet of water, potentially yield 600,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2060 and take 30 years to construct. Buying land to secure water rights would cost a chunk of cash, too, which leads to an even larger obstacle for such proposals: the legal and political hoops.
Most notably, the Mississippi River basin doesn’t always have enough water to spare. Drought conditions plagued the region throughout 2022, for instance, prompting concerns over river navigation.
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