LETTER: Not popular in the Northwest

I read with interest the recent letter from Bill Minarik and his reasons/objections to piping water from the Columbia River to alleviate the shortage on the Colorado River. A few years ago, when I lived in Seattle, I wrote a letter to the Seattle Times suggesting a sea-level pipeline be built from the mouth of the Columbia to California. The reception by Seattleites was almost universally negative. Saying, in effect, don’t give or sell our water to California … let them “dry up and blow away.”

A sea-level pipeline would have the advantages of very low pumping costs and much reduced environmental impacts, and it would avoid many the restrictions, impacts and problems associated with an overland pipeline. Building costs would be commensurately lower. I still believe that the sea level pipeline to supply California makes sense to help reduce California’s demands on the Colorado, though I’m sure most northwesteners would still not be in favor of it.