Every year the east side of the country seems to have historic flooding, meanwhile there is always historic drought out west.
Why can’t we just build a pipeline to pump flood zones to drought zones?
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We can build pipelines for water. There are two major issues, depending on the exact situation:
1. Flooding – Not feasible. If you are referring to pumping flood water away, the volume of water needing to be pumped is impossibly large and it is impossible to predict when it would be available to be pumped. Drought zones would need predictable supplies. Even if it could be pumped, the size of the storage tanks needed to hold that much water to make supplies of flood water available when needed would be on the scale of cities.
2. Fresh Water – Control and Access. If you are referring to simply being able to pump fresh water from areas that have it (like the Great Lakes areas) to drought areas), those areas that have water do not want to part with it. They realize how valuable a resource fresh water is. The states around the Great Lakes even have a formal agreement (the Great Lakes Water Compact – [https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/WaterUse/Compact.html](https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/WaterUse/Compact.html)) that governs how that resource is managed. Those states also have an international agreement with the provinces in Canada (the Great Lakes St. Lawrence River Basis Sustainable Water Resources Agreement – [https://www.ontario.ca/page/great-lakes-st-lawrence-river-basin-sustainable-water-resources-agreement-0](https://www.ontario.ca/page/great-lakes-st-lawrence-river-basin-sustainable-water-resources-agreement-0)) that border the Great Lakes for the same purpose.
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