Drought-stricken correspondents at one small California newspaper have sparked a national conversation by proposing to re-route water from the Mississippi River to the parts of the U.S. Southwest to relieve the parched conditions there.
The letters to the editor section of the Desert Sun, based out of Palm Springs, has seen letters coming in since June from locals who believe the nation’s largest river by volume can help hydrate their arid region.
“Instead of just conservation, what about a Tennessee Water Authority-like project to divert the Mississippi River and build a canal with reservoirs along the way, to pipe it into the Colorado River? Kill two birds with two stones — not so far-fetched when you see the type of projects being built in the Middle East and China! It’s about will,” wrote Bill Nichols from Las Vegas in the June 22 letter that set this debate off.
Julie Makinen, the paper’s executive editor, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that Mr. Nichols’ letter drove 75,000 page views to the website, which is unheard of for the paper with a daily circulation of 20,000 to 50,000.
A June 30 letter suggesting that an aqueduct from the Mississippi River could fill Lake Powell in less than a year brought a record 465,000 views to the paper’s site after Google’s “Discover” feed picked it up.
It set off a war of words between the desert residents and those writing in from places such as Minnesota, whose fame as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” also made it a popular suggestion among some readers.
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Southwesterners wrote that Midwestern snowbirds owe it to them for the privilege of wintering in their states.
One resident from Red Wing, Minnesota, just southeast of Minneapolis along the Mississippi, wrote that “I will save you some time by informing you that [the aqueduct] is not going to happen because the local citizenry here doesn’t want you to have that water.”
The Pioneer Press reported that other Midwestern letter-writers were concerned about how water diversion could alter the fertile environment that is used by farms in America’s breadbasket heartland.
The paper said that the core of the issue is a “megadrought” that is affecting parts of California, Montana, Texas and the states in between. It suggested that it could be the worst drought those states have seen in 1,200 years.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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