Water

In 1998, Ontario gave a Canadian businessman permission to transport 156 million gallons of water per year from Lake Superior to Asia. Canadians and Americans put a stop to that.

In 2015, an article in the Detroit Free Press considered the possibility of diverting Great Lakes water to California, which was in the middle of a long drought. California wasn't asking for our water, but might they in the future?

But while we worry that California wants our water, they actually export many tons of water every year to other countries and other states. Wine is mostly water, and California produces more than 17 million gallons of wine. Lettuce is 95% water, and two thirds of that sold in the US comes from California. California produces more than 50% of US production for 18 fruits and and 18 vegetables, and virtually 100% of nine of these products. California is our national garden.

With the help of California Agricultural Statistics, I took a stab at figuring out about how much water they ship out of the state. (Take my calculations with a grain of salt; it is not uncommon for me to check, recheck, triple check, and then find later that I made a stupid mistake.)

Total production for California:

• Vegetables: 23 million tons (if you include potatoes, sweet potatoes, and sugar beets)
• Fruits & Nuts: 16 million tons (this includes wine grapes, so I assume it includes the wine)

How much of this does California consume? I'm guessing about 20% because then I can figure half of their production goes to other states. This makes my calculations easier, but I didn't actually find this statistic. It's not likely much if any more than that.

• Foreign exports = 28% by value (I'm leaving this out of the equation)
• Let's say 50% of produce goes to states outside of CA
• Average water content of fruits and vegetables is between 75% and 95%. Let's go with an average of 85%

So this means that about 16.5 million tons, or close to 4.5 billion gallons, of water is shipped out of state. This is just the amount shipped away from drought-weary California. The amount of water to grow all these fruits and vegetables is many times more than the water content at harvest.

If we use the 8-glasses-per-day rule, the average American drinks 3/4 of a ton of water per year. So the water in California fruits and vegetables consumed by other states would take care of water consumption for 22 million people.

The average person uses 90 gal of water per day, so I realize that the amount of water we are talking about is pretty small—only enough for 135,000 people for a year. But it is about 30 times what the Canadian wanted to ship to Asia, and still a lot of water. Then there are non-residential uses. All told, my city of Grand Rapids, MI, uses more than 35 million gallons/day or close to 13 billion gallons a year. So just our town uses almost three times as much water as California sends to other states in its fruits and veggies.

But if changes in climate leave some of our neighbors high and dry, a water pipeline from the Great Lakes isn't such a bad idea—if it were feasible. If the Great Lakes shipped California 16.5 million tons of water we could reduce the record high-water levels in Lake Michigan by close to half a millimeter. Let's say we were really generous:

• We could triple that amount and bring down the lake level by a whole millimeter.
• We could ship California 80 times that amount, 375 billion gallons, and drop the lake by almost an inch.
• We could ship 2.3 trillion gallons (6 billion gallons/day) and drop the lake level by 6 inches, the same amount added to Lake Michigan in the month of June, 2019. This would require a bigger pipe and bigger pumps than the world has ever seen. (I'll leave actual calculations to an engineer.)

Of course, we don't know how long the lakes will continue to rise. Weather related to climate change may be causing an increase in precipitation, but rising sea levels do not directly affect the levels of the Great Lakes, which are well above sea level. Not so many years ago, we worried that the lake levels were too low.

The value of water will have to go way up to make a water pipeline from Chicago to the Colorado River practical. I expect desalination would be a less-expensive option. But is the principal of sharing water with a key supplier of our fruits and vegetables such a radical notion? And right now, at least, wouldn't it be a relief to see a slight drop in our lake levels?