Exclusive: William Shatner’s $30 Billion Kickstarter Campaign to Save California

[bearssoapbox]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/exclusive-william-shatners-30-billion-116672789084.html

“California’s in the midst of a 4-year-old drought,” he said. “They tell us there’s a year’s supply of water left. If it doesn’t rain next year, what do 20 million people in the breadbasket of the world do? In a place that’s the fifth-largest GDP — if California were a country, it’d be fifth in line — we’re about to be arid! What do you do about it?”

Here’s the plan:

“So I’m starting a Kickstarter campaign. I want $30 billion … to build a pipeline like the Alaska pipeline. Say, from Seattle — a place where there’s a lot of water. There’s too much water. How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it aboveground — because if it leaks, you’re irrigating!”

And where would this water pipeline go?

“Bring it down here and fill one of our lakes! Lake Mead!”

I was a little skeptical. It didn’t sound doable. The political hassles, the fights with local towns, the environmental impact…

“No, it’s simple,” Shatner replied. “They did it in Alaska — why can’t they do it along Highway 5? This whole area’s about to go under!”

Shatner conceded that even if he’s not able to raise the money, the effort will at least raise consciousness about the severity of California’s drought.

“If I don’t make 30 billion, I’ll give the money to a politician who says, ‘I’ll build it.’ Obviously, it’s to raise awareness that something more than just closing your tap … so why not a pipeline?”
~~~~~
There's a little more at the link.

I like Mr. Shatner because he hasn't been afraid to try things.

Never thought he was a great actor, but he wasn't/isn't bad and as he got more mature I think he got a little better.

He just seems like a likeable guy.

Also, this made me laugh, " How bad would it be to get a large, 4-foot pipeline, keep it aboveground — because if it leaks, you’re irrigating!”

Didn't know he was 85 though. He looks good.

[Trillo]

1. If nothing else, it is a constructive idea that would solve a problem.

One that needs serious consideration. I wonder how long it would take to build such a pipeline, if all due haste were put on its construction?

[bearssoapbox]

7. That's what I thought.

At least it's an idea.

[ND-Dem]

21. It wouldn't solve anything. Seattle doesn't have "too much water". We're in bad shape

up this way too, from lack of snowfall in the mountains -- a dry winter and a dry spring.

[Trillo]

27. It starts the conversation. It's perhaps unfeasable, I do not know.

The other options are atmospheric fog catchers and desalination plants, two vastly different technologies.

There's an additional issue at play,

The New “Water Barons”: Wall Street Mega-Banks are Buying up the World’s Water
Published: April 12, 2015
Share | Print This


Source: Global Research

A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.

Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.

more...

Thus, "we have no water" can be truth or possibly negotiation strategy.

[ND-Dem]

36. You're saying the light snowpack this year is a "negotiation strategy"? I don't get it.

[former9thward]

34. Environmental lawsuits would halt it for decades.

[Trillo]

38. JOBS, sign the petition.

JOBS TO BUILD A WATER PIPELINE FOR DROUGHTS AND FLOODS AND SAVE BILLIONS IN CROPS, LIVESTOCK, PROPERTY!

Building and maintaining such a pipeline would provide long term jobs for thousand of people, save millions in livestock, crop and property loss, not to mention human suffering.

The state climatologist for Texas says the record drought of 2011 could be only the beginning of a dry spell that could last until 2020. What if this drought affects the entire Southwest and Western US?

There is an urgent need to conduct water from states suffering flooding from too much rain or snow melt to provide water to states suffering drought causing losses of entire farms, crops, and farm animals and to provide jobs to build these pipelines.

We could develop a network of interstate high-volume water pipe-lines, so water could be transmitted from areas that have too much (recently the Northeast) to areas of drought. They could be installed with relatively little disruption by flowing the right-of-ways of various Interstate Highways and/or rail lines.

Since water is non-toxic, occasional small leaks would not damage the environment. To install the system would create much-needed jobs in the US. The system could be built gradually over years to spread out the cost and job-supply. Pipe-line flow could be reversed if climate changes dictate.

Building and maintaining this pipeline would provide long term jobs for thousand of people, save millions in livestock, crop and property loss, not to mention human suffering.

Sign the petition.

[former9thward]

40. I have been told a hundred times on DU

only a couple dozen "real" jobs would be created by the Keystone pipeline. It can't be that Keystone would only create a couple dozen "real" jobs and this pipeline would create thousands. Can't have it both ways.

[trumad]

44. This pipeline saves lives...

The other kills life.

[former9thward]

45. The poster said the pipeline would create thousands of jobs.

It either will or won't. Why are you changing the subject?

[snooper2]

51. And also, you wouldn't need any pumps pressurize the pipeline, water runs downhill

[Trillo]

52. I see what you did there!

North is higher than south, lol!

[kiva]

53. Actually,

"Water runs uphill, to money" - Anonymous, quoted by Marc Reisner.

Personally I'm all for giving this a shot - whether people like it or not the American southwest contains a substantial percent of the country's population.

For anyone who says 'then move', ask yourself how you feel about millions of emigrants from California and Nevada and Arizona arriving in your town with no money, taxing your resources, taking up space so that your farmlands and garden space and forests decrease.

[snooper2]

54. I'm good with it, we have thousands of people moving from Cali to the DFW area!

Frisco and Plano are building homes like hotcakes, good for our local economy!

Our water reservoirs are up anther 1% just in the last week

been raining and raining for the past couple months-

Monitored Water Supply Reservoirs are 71.4% full on 2015-04-21

[packman]

2. I thought of a pipeline also

BUT - I can't do the math.

How long would a 4 foot pipe pumping water 24/7 take to fill something like Lake Mead? OR - is the rate of evaporation going to be greater than the ability to fill such a lake?


I'm sure Spock and Scotty could have figured it out - wherever they are.

[bluedigger]

5. You would need to know both volume and flow rate.

Too many unknowns to do more than guess, but I doubt evaporation would be significant in an enclosed pipeline. The biggest obstacle to filling the reservoir would probably be stopping whatever agency has claims to draw water from it from doing so before it filled up.

[packman]

8. Not the evaporation in the pipe

But , the evaporation in the lake. In other words, would a large surface lake have more evap than a pipe could compensate for. Guess it makes a case for underground storage of some kind.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

47. with assumptions, post #9

gives a flow rate... but it is an assumption.

sP

[onehandle]

3. America doesn't think big or build stuff any more.

The NRAGOPteahadists won.

[bearssoapbox]

15. We're lucky to get potholes fixed.

As long as reTHUGliCONS keep on with their obstructionism and fear-mongering, don't see much getting done in the future.

[napkinz]

4. Yes We Khan!

[NYC_SKP]

6. Very bad idea. Water projects caused this problem

Water projects allowed growth where it should never and could never have occurred so this is like putting out a fire with gasoline.

[bearssoapbox]

12. Greed.

And the thinking that they could always get the water from somewhere.

So many places in the west that are using water like fresh, unpolluted water will always be there in abundance.

Not to worry though, the planets cooling down so the colder winters will provide more snow.

All, we have to do is not use the phrases "global warming" or "climate change" and everything will be juuuust fine.

[MFrohike]

42. Shhhh

Nobody wants to hear that building giant cities and having giant agri-business in the desert is a dumb idea.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. four foot diameter pipe... assume water velocity of 80mph

you get a flow rate of roughly 40million gallons per hour... sounds like a lot... not really, though. Lake Lanier in north Georgia had an outflow of 67million gallons per hour yesterday. That is one moderately sized lake in a state with a fraction of California's population.

a pipeline won't cut it.

sP

[Blue_Tires]

10. Does California even need a kickstarter for this?

It's not like that state is hurting for cash...Apple probably spends $30 billion on their starbucks budget...

[Pathwalker]

11. No, you can't have ANY of the Great Lakes water.

The International treaty known as the Great Lakes Compact says so.

[bearssoapbox]

14. That's right!!!

Ohio needs that water to grow algae in Lake Erie...

And to drink after they poison our groundwater with fracking fluid.

[Pathwalker]

24. Yeah, we don't need to honor no stinking International treaty!

Besides, a war with Canada would be fun, eh?

[bearssoapbox]

25. eh?

[Pathwalker]

28. ayup. People have their own sayings up here.

And we talk fast too, especially in winter.

[bearssoapbox]

49. Most of the relatives on my Mom's side still live in northern Minnisota and northern North Dakota.

I was born in Rapid City, SD and family moved to Ohio in 1964, I was 9ysr. old, so I have a more midwestern accent and speech.

Sometimes when visiting or talking on the phone it can be hard of follow them at times.

When we first moved to Ohio we lived in Dayton and I was given extra English and speech lessons. I thought their was something wrong with the people down here because they talked funny and slow.

What surprised me was how 'warm' the winters were and why so many complained about the COLD?

[jwirr]

30. Absolutely not.

[Politicalboi]

13. I've been saying this for some time now

If water were oil, they would find a way to pipe it.

[Retrograde]

16. What's Shatner's water consumption profile?

Has he cut down use over the past couple of years, or is he one of the ultra-rich who think they can avoid the problem by paying higher rates?

[IDemo]

17. Would that be famed hydrologist William Shatner?

Governor declares drought emergency for three regions

5:07 p.m. PDT March 14, 2015

SEATTLE – With Washington state snowpacks at record-low levels, Governor Jay Inslee has declared a drought emergency for three regions of the state.

The emergency covers the watersheds on the Olympic Peninsula, the east side of the central Cascades and the Walla Walla region.

The state says the snowpack is 7% of normal in the Olympics. It's between 8% and 45% of normal in the Cascades and about 67 percent around Walla Walla. More than half of the state's watersheds are expected to receive less than 75 percent of their normal water supplies.Because most of the precipitation has fallen as rain this winter, there is not enough snow to slowly feed the state's rivers this summer.

"Snowpack is at record lows, and we have farms, vital agricultural regions, communities and fish that are going to need our support," said Inslee in a statement.

I think it comes down to California believing its politicians have enough power to tap other regions regardless of the actual science or the political pushback.

[ND-Dem]

22. thank you. shatner's an idiot. he knows nothing except that seattle = rain, so it must

have "too much water".

idiot.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

50. No shit

I was going to point that out. Apparently Shatner doesn't understand we have our own water problems up here.

[HereSince1628]

18. Californians have enjoyed pretty reasonable costs on water, and many CA cities higher avg use

than places with adequate water resources.

At least according to this article which is from 2010.

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/the-price-of-water-a-comparison-of-water-rates-usage-in-30-u-s-cities/

Granted the article is dated and doesn't reflect Californians response to the drought, but it raises the question of whether a technically feasible project transporting water from Alaska or British Columbia, or Washington or Oregon could provide water at a price point that would let California be anything like pre-drought California.

And if it can't be, maybe the costs of relocating the people to places that have water to spare at good price points is economically more realistic. There are cities in places east of California that have water and could use people.

[Faux pas]

19. Maybe if they didn't let all the rain

water flush out to the Pacific, they might have water of their own. Los Angeles already stole water from Owen's Valley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars and now they want to steal it from other states? It's NOT everybody else's problem.
Just my humble opinion.

[hunter]

20. This was all hashed out in the 'sixties and early 'seventies...

... when great plans to divert water from the Columbia River, and even all the way north to Alaska, to irrigate Western deserts still seemed "practical."

It would have been an environmental catastrophe at the very least. Experiences elsewhere in the world with such projects, in the Soviet Union, China, and the U.S.A., have proven the folly of these projects over and over again. We killed the Colorado River, and there were even plans to build dams in the Grand Canyon. China killed the Yangtze River. The Soviet Union killed the Aral Sea.

Imagine these projects, built with "atoms for peace" hydrogen bombs:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance

It would not have made the world a better place.

[Jesus Malverde]

43. Interesting thanks...nt

[corkhead]

23. There's lots of water nearby, it just has a bunch of salt dissolved in it

Spending that money on developing desalinization technology would be my choice

[Trillo]

29. Very energy intensive to do.

Water is also overhead, in the atmosphere. As the earth and its air warms, there will be more moisture in the air as a result of increased evaporation.

[snooper2]

55. more nuke plants...Fission until we get to Fusion

[Trillo]

56. That's an old canard, it's been used at least since 1970s.

If we keep building nuclear plants, one day we'll have fusion. It's essentially a non-sequitur.

[jwirr]

32. Is the supply of water from the ocean infinite? That is the question we ignore about every resource

on earth.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

46. well, technically, no... but practically, yes.

the water cycle makes it so... as long as the water doesn't leave earth, it eventually ends up in a body of water somewhere...

sP

[closeupready]

58. Otherwise known as a renewable resource.

New York's supply is pretty good. If you wanted to buy it from us, I'm sure we'd be willing to sell our surplus, lol.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

60. i was simply commenting on the infinite-ness of

water in the ocean... not who had a surplus or who was willing to sell or anything else... right now we have an over-abundance in northern GA... but we were in the same drought conditions that CA is NOW in about seven years ago. i wish we would do something now, when we're in plenty, to prepare for the next drought that will come.

sP

[closeupready]

61. No worries, I was just being silly.

More seriously, I do reject the idea that California is entitled to fresh water from outside that state's boundaries. Who am I, but that's the way I see it.

[abelenkpe]

26. He's 85?!

Dang. He does look good. Hope he sticks around longer. Love that he's trying to do something to help out CA.

[Xolodno]

31. Notice he said Lake Mead.

Took Water Resource Economics in college...you could be in a flood with your house underwater, but the minute you say LA or California is going to buy your excess water...all hell breaks loose. Lake Mead is in Nevada....heh....Las Vegas is buying your water! Which would probably be OK to the majority....of course, that's part of the Colorado River...which California has access to.

Last summer I was in Colorado for vacation, while chatting in the van for a white water rafting trip, one person kind of snickered that California was in a drought....I said "Yeap....and that means your food prices are going to spike"...he went silent.

For a couple of decades, economist have been warning about a situation like this here in California...and no one did anything. Using a pipeline should be for extreme circumstances and is not the answer. Research into making desalinization more efficient and developed, conservation such as no more lawns, golf courses, parks, etc. using recycled water, (hell...have trucks with recycled water be required to fill pools), etc. That will go a long way.

[Jenoch]

33. I don't think a 4 foot diameter pipe

can move enoigh water, even if it was available, to make much of a difference.

Since when was California considered the "breadbasket" of the U.S.? It could be called the salad bowl or nut bowl however.

Shatner is 84.

[procon]

35. What a crackpot.

California already has a massive aqueduct system that begins at Lake Oroville, north of Sacramento, running to Lake Perris, the southernmost water storage facility. There are numerous reservoirs and lakes, pumping plants, and power plants all along the route.

Highway 5 is a major freeway in Calif, and he's proposing what... eminent domain to buy up tens of thousands of properties along it's 800 mile length, and then the same in Oregon, and Washington? Does he think water is free for the taking and he can just bulldoze his way through every west coast state?

[Trillo]

39. from 1992: Alaskan Water for California? The Subsea Pipeline Option

Seems to bypass the land routes, there's a diagram on PDF page 6

[Kaleva]

37. Those who disagree with be red shirted.

[Warren DeMontague]

41. If California wants the Pacific Northwest's water

California can ASK us, and then if we say yes, California can pay us for it.

It's not our fault they've tried to stick 34 million people in a Desert.

[J_J_]

48. not that far off-Bulk water exports from Sitka, Alaska to California to start this summer

A company that once operated a Sitka bottled-water plant but switched its focus to bulk exports says it has confirmed customers in drought-stricken California.

“The shipment of bulk water from Sitka will become reality this summer,” Alaska Bulk Water CEO Terry Trapp said in an email. “Our company has obtained contracts for the shipment of bulk water.”

While initial shipments will be to California, markets could expand, he said in the email. “The company has been in discussion with many of the water-stressed countries around the world and expects to begin international shipments in the near future as well,” he said.

Details about how the water would be delivered are yet unclear, but one option involves a combination of large, flexible bags and cargo-shipping containers.


The water comes from Blue Lake, a 6-mile-long body of water that also provides hydropower and drinking water to Sitka. The water is so abundant that household use is not metered, and so "clean in its natural state" that filtration is not required, according to the Sitka public works department's drinking water quality report. The local government has been working for years to commercialize that liquid asset.

http://www.adn.com/article/20150414/long-anticipated-bulk-water-exports-sitka-start-summer-businessman-says

[joeybee12]

57. Last year Washington was in the midst of a terrible drought...

Seattle's scenery and environment is due to a lot of rain and a lot of water...stop messing with nature...California needs to conserve...they never have, and now they see that they should have...all of the southwest wasn't meant to be so populated.

[hunter]

59. Here's my solution:

We Californians create a sort of cannabis that grows in saltwater, we raise seafood in saltwater ponds, we stop bathing and washing our clothing more than once a week, and we become the premier cannabis and seafood supplier to the world!

Moving fresh water to California, desalinating seawater, that is so twentieth century and primitive. We have to be truly innovative.