Ghosts of NAWAPA

The Bureau of Reclamation is proposing a massive uphill diversion from the Missouri River to Denver. The Missouri River Reuse Project [pdf] would provide 600,000 Acre-Feet of water to the Front Range to as an alternative to desiccating the Upper Colorado even more.  This evokes the ghost of the continental engineering of North American Water and Power Alliance (1964) or towing icebergs from Alaska to provide water to Los Angeles.

“The idea of constructing conveyances to move water resources between other basins and the Colorado has been raised before and was once again submitted as an idea in this process,” Bureau of Reclamation public affairs chief Dan DuBray said in a statement. “Any proposal will be evaluated for feasibility, broad support and realistic funding potential before further consideration would be given.” – The Denver Post

Pumping 600,000 acre-feet up 4,440 feet requires a staggering amount of energy: 1.85 kWh (per acre-foot/feet elevation) x 4,440 feet x 600,000 = 4,928 gigawatt hour.  This is almost the same amount as Colorado’s total net electricity generation 5,176 gigawatt hour!!!! Digging deeper into the Bureau’s proposal, only 500 CFS (361,983 acre-feet/year) would be delivered to Colorado – so that still would take over half of all electricity from the state. The Bureau totally dodges this in their statement that ‘The amount of electrical energy required for operations would be substantial and needs to be determined based on consideration of reasonable design alternatives.’

In a year of record drought, when the Mississippi River is running so low that navigation is being impacted – a diversion of water at this scale faces a huge political and environmental battle. Water does flow uphill to money – so the question is, can Denver’s 2,599,504 folks compete with the shipping industry that moves $100 billion/year of goods or big-ag that ships 60% of all grain down the Mississippi? But then, the physics of the water-energy nexus may be the simplest obstacle.

NAWAPA from: Forest & Forest 2012

A fascinating study of proposed large-scale water projects in North America is:

Benjamin Forest & Patrick Forest ‘s ‘Engineering the North American waterscape: The high modernist mapping of continental water transfer projects’ Political Geography, Volume 31, Issue 3, March 2012, Pages 167–183 [link – may need a subscription to view]

Forest & Forest 2012’s Table 1. North American continental water transfer project proposals 1959–2009

Project	Year	Author(s)	Nationality
GRAND Canal Concept	1959	Tom Kierans, Engineer	Canadian
Great Lakes-Pacific Waterways Plan	1963	Decker	Unknown
North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA)	1964	The Ralph M. Parsons Company, Engineering Firm, California	American
Canadian Water Export, Kuiper Plan	1966	Ed Kuiper	Canadian
Magnum Plan	1966	Knut Magnusson	Canadian
Stabilization of the Great Lakes	1966	Allan C. R. Albery, Engineer	Canadian
Central North American Water Project (CeNAWP)	1967	E. Roy Tinney, Canadian, former professor at Washington State University, then Canadian civil servant	Canadian
Western States Water Augmentation	1968	Lewis Gordy Smith, retired U.S.B.R. engineer	American
Mexican-United States Hydroelectric Commission (MUSHEC) (expansion of NAWAPA plan)	1968	The Ralph M. Parsons Company, Engineering Firm, California	American
North American Waters (NAWAMP)	1968	Tweed	Unknown
Water for Survival	1968	John T. Tucker, retired engineer	American
Alaska Subsea Pipeline	1991	Gov. Walter Hickel, Alaska	American
Multinational Resources Proposal	1992	William Clancey (Multinational Water and Power, Inc)	Canadian/Multinational
Klymchuk	2001	Daniel Klymchuk, policy analyst	Canadian
Gingras	2009	F. Pierre Gingras, retired engineer	Canadian

Spotted via Water Piped West to Denver Could Ease Stress on Colo. River – NYTimes.com & the Denver Post

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