In a noble enterprise to boldly “flow” where no water has gone before, legendary actor William Shatner is planning to launch a $30-billion Kickstarter campaign to build an above-ground pipeline from rainy Seattle, Wash. to Lake Mead. Best known for his portrayal as Capt. James T. Kirk on “Star Trek,” Shatner said this week that the plan is more than just a pipe dream but could actually work—provided they come up with the money and convince Seattle to give up its water.
“I want $30 billion to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say from Seattle—a place where there’s lots of water,” Shatner said. “There’s too much water. How bad would it be to get a large, four-foot pipeline, keep it above ground, because if it leaks, you’re irrigating.”
Shatner’s idea is not new. Long-distance water transport has been around for about 200 years. In the 19th Century, Boston entrepreneur Frederic Tudor made a fortune shipping ice cut from New England ponds to the Caribbean, Brazil and as far away as India. In 1991, Wally Hickel, then-governor of Alaska, proposed a similar pipeline that would carry water to California underneath the Pacific Ocean. These and other ideas, say Rich Golb, former president of the Northern California Water Association, may be worth a concerted look.
“California and the rest of the West are now at a point where they really can’t dismiss ideas that once would have been considered silly.”
Shatner’s plan, however, would be difficult at best given the enormous costs involved, says Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. Political and environmental barriers, Lund explained, would surely make the plan so illogical that even Mr. Spock would be challenged.
“The energy costs of moving water that distance, over mountain ranges, would be considerable,” Lund said. “It would be less expensive to use less water, and probably less expensive to desalt seawater, than to build such a project.”
There is a project underway in Alaska in which contracts have been agreed upon to transport 50 million gallons of water from the town of Sitka south to California. How this water will be transported has not been finalized, but one idea being floated involves large poly-fiber bags filled with water…in essence a flotilla of commercial water balloons.
The battlecry for more water has produced a statewide brainstorming session, prompting celebrities, tech gurus, politicians and business leaders to offer a range of ideas for easing the dry stretch. For instance, David Sedlak, a professor of civil engineering at UC Berkeley, has suggested taking water from sewage treatment plants and turning it into drinking water. In this plan, waste water is filtered through a sewage treatment plant, and then through another treatment plant utilizing reverse osmosis, and then through a system of ultra-violet light and hydrogen peroxide before returning it to the water supply.
Far Niente Vineyards in Oakville (in Napa County) has installed 1,000 solar panels that float on an irrigation pond. This plan is said to help reduce evaporation on the pond and also to provide shade. Apparently, the proximity of the water also keeps the panels cooler and more efficient than they would otherwise be.
Officials in Northern California are considering using drones to seed rainclouds. Piloted planes have been used to seed clouds for many decades. Aerial seeding is said to produce an additional 1 billion gallons of water for every 25 to 45 hours in flight, but only manned aircraft is used so far because safety measures require them to stay above the clouds.
San Francisco has unveiled its “Ugliest Lawn Contest” calling on residents to submit photos of the worst-looking lawns in town. The winner will receive an eco-friendly drought makeover for his or her lawn.
