The oddest thing is that engineers came up with a solution to this in the 1960s. Some smart people realized that there is an enormous excess of precipitation in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, and this most of this freshwater flows into the Pacific and Arctic oceans unused. The flow of freshwater runoff in Alaska alone is more than half of the entire runoff of the continental United States. Engineers realized that with a very long aqueduct, they could pump this unused water thousands of miles to the parched Southwest United States. They came up with a viable plan to make this happen. At the cost of $100 billion (the same price as the US interstate system), the aqueduct could pump <i>10 times the flow of the Colorado river</i>, more than enough to completely resolve the region&#x27;s water problems. The aqueduct would generate billions per year in hydroelectric power, an even more in added economic value. Like the Hoover dam, it would pay for itself within 30 years.<p>Yet, due to objections from environmentalists, the project ended up going nowhere and few people today have even heard of the project.<p>If you&#x27;re interested, there&#x27;s more on this topic on the Wiki page [1], as well as two videos made in the 1960s about the benefits of NAWAPA.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;North_American_Water_and_Power...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_MibzpJ54do" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=_MibzpJ54do</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=D0dsc-341O8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=D0dsc-341O8</a>