We as a nation are mostly ignoring one of the largest natural disasters of our time — the multiyear drought and desertification of California and adjacent areas. Nearly 40 million people just in California are suffering the devastating effects. Agriculture is collapsing, adding to the suffering, and deepening the crisis. The most valuable agricultural region in the nation is drying up, along with the superb produce we have come to take for granted. California's $2.2 trillion GDP is at risk — an economy nearly the size of the economy of the U.K.
As a nation, we stand idly by watching this drama unfold and do nothing.
Meanwhile hundreds of miles north, the Columbia River, one of the largest in the U.S., discharges an average of 265,000 cubic feet per second of water into the Pacific Ocean, creating a plume of drinkable fresh water that extends 30 miles into the ocean.
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The technology exists to capture and transport some of this water in a deep undersea pipeline — a floating pipeline several hundred feet below the surface. Such projects already exist (Turkey to Cyprus for example). Water could be captured at the mouth of the river offshore and moved through such a pipeline of a scale never before built.
A project like this creates countless jobs and yields untold benefits — not the least of which is keeping Californians in California.
This is a project worthy of our nation, a project that ultimately will yield dividends far in excess of its cost — and investment in the future.
Howard Wilkinson
Melville