Considering the lack of enthusiasm for merely maintaining the infrastructure that exists I doubt this type of "Tennessee Valley" project could interest a public or a congress intent on spending huge amounts for the military on obvious boondoggles but little for the essentials of civilian life. As the article indicates there is probably not enough water to circumvent the drying up of the southwest and desalination is far too expensive and impractical to add much to the solution. The blatant neglect of even restoring and bringing up to standard the systems in New Orleans is a clear indication of how dysfunctional the central government has become so even if the scheme were practical it seems very unlikely a sensible group could exert enough rational political force to accomplish the task.

Although I respect your humanitarianism, I want to point out why this won't work. People were never intended to live in the desert, yet the people of the West and Southwest want to, at the expense of everyone else.

I live in the Midwest. We do have an occasional flood, but they're sporadic and they happen so fast that there would be no way to pump away the water fast enough. And because you're a PE, you know that we can accurately predict where floods will occur and how often, so we also know that only idiots that live in the flood plains (trailer parks?) will be flooded.

But because I have enough water, I don't think I should have to pay for the people that don't.

FEMA is like this now, that is a wealth redistributor--we Midwesterners don't suffer earthquakes, hurricanes, riots, tsunamis, wildfires, etc. We do have the occasional tornado, but Even when the whole town of Greenfield, KS was hit, the total damage was less than the cost of one-block in New Orleans.

If you want water pumped from my region, you'll have to pay for it. It's not to my benefit at all.

This is only peripheral to the subject but it must be said that the concept of a nation is that it is a human social organization devoted to the welfare of all the participants. Thus the wealth of those generously endowed or earned is permitted or taken by the government to the general benefit of the nation as a whole. This wealth can be monetary, natural resources, talent, or whatever. In return government ideally sees to it that the wealth is properly directed and utilized. This is, of course, ideal and never totally fair but humanity is obviously very imperfect and we are living through times that this redistribution is becoming exceedingly unfair. Nevertheless, the ideal should be kept in mind.

In response to hrench, I watched on CNN the other day as million dollar homes were washed away by a massively flooding river in the midwest. I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure they weren't million dollar trailers. And although you may be correct that floods happen quickly and without warning, there are many areas in the country where flooding is common enough that such a control system would be beneficial (anywhere with levees would be a good place to start). In any case, take a look at a map of the U.S. and take note that the borders do not end with the midwest region. And don't get too smug about your lack of certain natural disasters either. There is no place on the planet that is immune to the wrath of nature, or its fickleness. Your plentiful water supply could dry up in a single season of extreme drought and have you begging for 'your share' of some other region's water supply.

Now to the idea. It's a good one, but right from the start you will need some sort of treatment system for the water to at the very least filter out debris. Never mind the possibility of drawing in extremely contaminated water like that of New Orleans that sat in the streets, homes, and businesses for so long. Somewhere like the desert southwest may be grateful for the water until they find out that it's polluted and they're 'stuck with the check' in terms of having to treat the water.

Another issue to consider is the possibility of spreading species of plants, animals, and even bacteria native to one region to somewhere they would never have naturally migrated to. You could have a large invasive species problem or accidentally kill off or supercede important commercial species for a given area.

If you could somehow process the water, something like a giant electrolyzer, you could use the force of the flooding river to generate electricity to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen and just send the hydrogen off into the energy grid via pipeline. Yes, I know that's a bit farfetched. Just think though, if everyone in the desert southwest were using hydrogen powered vehicles and homes and emitting water vapor (or even better capturing it) the need for water there would be greatly reduced.

In any case, I can hardly imagine the scale the flood control would have to work on. It makes me think of walking up to a small stream with a straw and trying to bring the flow down to a trickle even for a second by sucking in the rest of the water. How big of a straw would you need to subdue even a small river that has gone berserk?

I suppose an additional danger of doing this would be that it's virtually certain that the system would end up being used to draw water off even in non-flood times which will spark the same type of 'hands off my water' reaction that hrench displays above. We saw this same type of feeling expressed in real time this past summer on the East Coast when we had our drought and things were getting more and more tense between the states (particularly the south-eastern states) as the water levels in the resevoirs plumetted.

Drawing water off in non-flood times (or even possibly in flooding times) may also alter the ecosystem of the areas being drawn on. Look at the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon ecosystem for a good example of too much control over a river.