Archive: Mar 2015

Could a Cross-Country Pipeline Solve Problems on Both Coasts?

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Recently, we’ve been hearing about a theoretical pumping solution that has been getting nationwide attention. It has a lot of people asking, “Could this really work?”

It’s a common sense idea that began from regular folks questioning and hypothesizing: can we take the overabundance of snow in Boston, and transport it to California, a state suffering from a massive drought? At first it sounds like a crazy idea, but it might actually work.

This winter, the Boston area has been pummeled with snow—constant storms dumping record levels of it. Currently, it’s estimated that the amount of snow equates to about 5 billion gallons of water.

At the same time, California is experiencing a terrible drought, and experts say that it would take 11 trillion gallons of water to reverse it. So while the 5 billion gallons of Boston’s snow is only a fraction of the 11 trillion California needs, it’s a start. But is it possible, and if so, how?

It’s been proposed that a pipeline be built from Boston to California, a distance of 2,600 miles (to Los Angeles). Rather than collecting and then dumping the snow into the harbor, the snow would be collected and sent through the pipeline, pumping it cross-country. Of course, this would involve serious amounts of money, but money is already being spent on snow removal, and the California drought is costing countless amounts of money and energy.

So it seems what began almost as a joke—send us your snow!—maybe, just maybe, could work.

It’s unknown if this theory will ever come into existence, but at BLM we know that if a 2,600-mile-long pipeline is built to help save California, our clutches will be strong and powerful enough to make it work.