text: Former captain of the fictional Star Trek Enterprise, William Shatner has proposed a radical method to solve California’s ongoing drought disaster. He is planning to run a Kickstarter campaign and is hoping to raise $30 billion (£20 billion) to build a pipeline from Seattle to bring water to the state. But the proposal to build a pipeline hundreds of miles long has been declared 'highly illogical' by some experts. Scroll down for video . Former captain of the fictional Star Trek Enterprise, William Shatner (pictured) has revealed radical proposals in an interview with Yahoo News. He wants to build a 4ft-wide pipeline from Seattle down to California to transport water and solve the state's ongoing drought problem . He revealed the crowdfunding campaign in an interview with David Pogue from Yahoo News. Mr Shatner likened his project to a similar pipeline in Alaska - with, in this case, the pipeline running from Seattle to California down the I-5 highway. Since the year 2000, seven western states in the US has seen their driest periods in centuries: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. And scientists in California have warned that the region may be experiencing a century-long 'mega-drought'. The warnings came after sediment studies showed California is currently experiencing the driest spell since 1580, and that the regular rainfall seen during the last century is likely to have been a temporary deviation in a cycle of droughts and very occasional rainfall over the last 3,000 years. In 2013, California received less rain than in any year since its formation as a state in 1850. And the last four years have seen the worst conditions, with the entire state of California now declared to be experiencing a drought. The pipeline would reportedly be used to fill one of the rapidly drying lakes in California. He said Seattle was ‘a place where there’s a lot of water’ - although its state, Washington, is also experiencing a major drought. Without going into specifics, Mr Shatner added he would need a ‘large, four-foot pipeline’ above ground to keep enough water flowing. On his website though, Shatner’s Water, he is letting people suggest other ideas for what to do with the money - if the campaign is successful. If he doesn’t get the funding he requires, Mr Shatner says he will give the money he raises to a politician. However, Kickstarter doesn’t allow campaigners to keep any money if they don’t reach their target, so Mr Shatner may need to use a site such as Indiegogo instead, which does. The funding campaign has not yet launched and cynics have suggested that the proposal was tongue-in-cheek, or may have been a joke. On Twitter, Mr Shatner responded to some of these comments by posting: ‘I know I need experts and @algore and @elonmusk should be asked to weigh in and join the conversation,’ he said. And responding to complaints that Washington was also experiencing a severe drought, he said: ‘I think [Washington] folks are thinking I’m coming in with football field sized sponges in the middle of the night to steal their water.’ The ongoing drought is one of California's worst in history. The last four years have seen the worst conditions, with the entire state of California now declared to be experiencing a drought said the US Department of Agriculture. This graphic shows the areas that have been hit the worst . Without going into specifics, Mr Shatner said he would need a ‘large, four-foot pipeline’ above ground to keep enough water flowing. On his website Shatner’s Water, he is also letting people suggest other ideas for what to do with the money - if the campaign is successful. One of the alternative proposals is pictured . California has had to drastically cut back on water use to deal with the four-year drought that continues to cause devastation. But the Washington Department of Ecology spokesman Dan Partridge said that Mr Shatner’s plan was not necessarily the solution they needed. ‘Frankly we found it highly illogical, to put it in “Star Trek” terms,’ he said. ‘This would involve so many obstacles, so many hurdles that it would have to overcome to become reality. ‘Namely the water of Washington state, you have to acquire a number of rights to use that water and we would not be approving transfer of a huge volume of water out of our state at this point in time when we have a drought of our own to deal with.’ Bone dry: A Californian farmer is pictured surveying his drought-hit land in San Luis Obispo County .
target: Mr Shatner revealed his radical proposal in an interview with Yahoo News .
  He wants to build a 4ft-wide pipeline from Seattle down to California .
  This would bring water to help alleviate some of the drought problems .
  But some experts have called his $30 billion idea 'highly illogical'