&gt; Yet, due to objections from environmentalists<p>Have you <i>read</i> the environmental impact - just the summary on the wikipedia article is fucking horrific.<p>&gt; The engineering of the project and the creation of a large number of new reservoirs — many of them in designated wilderness areas — would have destroyed vast areas of wildlife habitat in Canada and the American West and would have required the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people — including the entire city of Prince George, British Columbia.[1] A number of federally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers in Idaho and Montana would be submerged under reservoirs, including the Salmon, Lochsa, Clearwater, Yellowstone and Big Hole.[1] The amount of electricity required to pump the water over the Rockies would require the construction of as many as six nuclear power plants.[1] Significant negative consequences were also predicted for Pacific salmon runs in the many Alaskan and Canadian rivers that would be dammed and diverted, reducing their flows. Luna Leopold, a conservationist and professor of hydrology at the University of California, Berkeley said of NAWAPA, &quot;The environmental damage that would be caused by that damned thing can&#x27;t even be described. It would cause as much harm as all of the dam-building we have done in a hundred years.&quot;<p>The first time I visited California, it was for a project for one of the native american casinos in the Temecula area. We flew into LAX met up with our colleagues (from other countries), rented a big suv thing and then drove to the casino.<p>The trip down was basically &quot;wow this is a big city&quot; followed by &quot;holy shit there is nothing here but desert&quot;.<p>Then we arrived in Temecula. A small city, in the middle of the fucking desert, with perfectly manicured, perfectly green lawn along the side of HIGHWAYS.<p>In most of the world, if an environment is too inhospitable for people, they either change their way of life (e.g.: people living underground in Coober Pedy; people embracing alternative types of gardens in dry&#x2F;arid locations) or they accept that it doesn&#x27;t suit them, and live somewhere else.<p>In America: no. fuck that. It doesn&#x27;t matter that 10 square feet of lawn will require more rainfall than this entire suburb will get in a year. I want my fucking lawn, so let&#x27;s make it happen!