Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

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Those sound like big numbers but unless my napkin math is very wrong it's not even an order of magnitude more than existing Californian water projects like the California Aqueduct [1]. 1 m/s flow through a 40 m diameter pipe is 1256 m^3/s which is less than four times that of the CA aqueduct at 370 m^3/s and the distance is five to six times depending on how you measure it at 2000-2400 miles compared to 440 miles. Just one of the pumping stations along the CA aqueduct pumps that water up about 2,000 feet at 2,000 PSI so the elevation change is barely a factor of two more.

The California Aqueduct was a megaproject that started over 70 years ago and the aforementioned Edmonston Pumping Station was turned on in 1973. At this point, the biggest challenge would be the right of way and litigation since the engineering has long been a solved problem. Those in California can go see the aqueduct exit the Sierra Nevada mountains at the edge of Bakersfield [2] and hiking trails around Lake Isabella intersect with open parts of the aqueduct where you can see all the water rushing by (don't fall in!). Imagine that, but like five or six times bigger.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct

[2] https://a.scpr.org/69978_86cbed2aa8b2e426383678de0f659072_or...

I don't doubt it's doable. But I don't think "barely an order of magnitude" quite captures the scale of the engineering. The Edmonston pumps, e.g., while they do raise water nearly 2000 feet, only move it a couple of miles, and have a capacity roughly 1/8 of what this proposal requires. Most of the California project can be gravity "pumped" canals. But there isn't much of the route from Louisiana to NE New Mexico that is or can be made to be downhill. There is way more than an order of magnitude more pipe and pumping to be built and provisioned in this proposal.

> the biggest challenge would be the right of way and litigation

I totally agree. I live in SoCal and there are some infrastructure projects that took forever (ie creating the I105 and finish connecting the I210), or will probably never get completed (ie. finish connecting the I710 and California High Speed Rail) all because of right of way issues and lots of law suits.

The I710 extension has been officially dead for almost a decade - CalTrans has probably finished selling off all the property they bought by now. I grew up in South Pasadena, the little 25k pop town that killed it, and it was a big deal because tons of money finally became available to repair our shitty roads and stop the hemorrhaging of the school district.

I always thought the schools were supposed to be awesome in South Pas. No?

Yes and no. The middle/high school had more great teachers than I can remember and many of the students came from families that placed great importance on education but the legal battle to stop the I710 extension was a disaster for the city budget. My freshman year in high school we didn't even have a history class and by sophomore year the elementary schools completely cut their arts and music programs as part of a $3 million district budget cut. Can you imagine elementary school without art!? Meanwhile, the booster club raised $4 million to replace the grass with fake turf on the football and baseball fields (also a disaster that cost the school money down the road).

Granted, this was during the great financial crisis so they may be doing better now.

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