The idea of pumping billions of liters The route from the Pacific Ocean to Nevada returned to the table when the Colorado River ceased to meet demand and large reservoirs began to rise above the current. historic lows Repeatedly. For the driest state in the US, the proposal seems like a last resort that defies natural logic.
The plan combines desalination on the coast, infrastructure transportation, and the ambition to create new lakes in the desert. However, besides being extremely expensive, it… It carries environmental risks that are difficult to ignore, especially when looking at precedents of “water in the desert” that have turned into ecological trap.
Why Nevada lives as if drought were the norm.
In Nevada, water is treated as more valuable than electricity for a simple reason: A blackout may pass, but the lack of water for daily life paralyzes everything..
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The state receives about 7 inches of rain per year, a very low volume even by semi-arid standards.
Most of the territory lies within the Great Basin, a system of closed basins where the rare rainfall neither reaches the ocean nor typically accumulates in rivers and lakes. Instead, It evaporates quickly. or it seeps in and disappears from the surface.
Without major rivers to nourish the land and without stable natural lakes for long-term storage, Nevada has become accustomed to living off… water brought from outside.
As cities expanded, especially Las Vegas, the thirst became more evident. Population and tourism grew, but the natural supply did not keep pace.
Gradually, daily life, the economy, and energy came to depend on a single logic: If the borrowed water weakens, everything else trembles along with it..
Western engineering and the illusion that water can always be “delivered”
In the American West, the search for water has never been trivial. Throughout the 20th century, the region entered an era in which many believed that nature could be reshaped by engineering projects.
Straight canals were designed to cut through deserts, and water was pumped through mountains and valleys for hundreds, even thousands of kilometers.
Projects like the Hoover Dam and the Colorado River system have helped sustain cities and agriculture in places where rivers never flowed abundantly.
Success, however, fueled a dangerous belief: With money and willpower, water would always find a way to arrive..
Nevada was no bystander. The state was at the forefront of proposals for water diversion and importation, ready to consider virtually any plan capable of alleviating a thirst that is not a “crisis,” but a prolonged state that has lasted for centuries.
From megaprojects to a new obsession: the ocean as an “infinite source”
At the height of water ambition, the continental-scale proposal known as NABA emerged, described as a meticulously calculated system of hundreds of dams, pumping stations, canals, tunnels, and reservoirs, stretching from Alaska and Canada to the western United States.
The promise was to end the thirst in arid states, expand cities, and boost large-scale agriculture.
The same scale that seduced the plan also brought it down: costs exceeding financial capacity, international disputes, the rise of the environmental movement, and ecological risks prevented it from ever leaving the drawing board.
The legacy, however, remained: the mentality that water could be controlled on a continental scale..
When those ideas crumbled, the West was forced to look in another direction: the Pacific horizon. If there isn’t enough fresh water to divide, why not “create” fresh water from the sea?
The proposal to pump billions of liters From ocean to desert arises from this reasoning, not as a promise of miracles, but as an alternative when traditional sources cease to sustain growth.
How desalination works and why it is so expensive, energy-intensive and risky.
Transforming seawater into freshwater requires brute force. Saltwater is corrosive and unsuitable for human consumption and agriculture in its natural state.
To become potable water, it needs to be forced through ultra-thin membranes underneath. immense pressure, a process associated with reverse osmosis, consuming large amounts of energy.
And the production of fresh water doesn’t happen in isolation. For every volume of clean water, a byproduct remains: brine even saltier than the original ocean.
If poorly managed, this brine can devastate coastal ecosystems for decades. For this reason, desalination has long been sidelined, seen as too expensive, too energy-intensive, and too risky.
What changes the equation is the combination of factors: more efficient technologies, a drop in the cost of solar energy, and, most importantly, the weakening of traditional energy sources.
When the Colorado River can no longer keep up with demand and major reservoirs repeatedly hit historic lows, ideas once considered madness begin to seem so. more reasonable than ever.
The plan to transport billions of liters and cross mountains is still just a hypothesis.
The ambition to bring the ocean to Nevada is not yet a project underway. It remains a hypothesis discussed in meeting rooms, technical reports, and simulation models.
No canal is being dug.No pipeline is being installed across the desert, and no political decision has been strong enough to turn the idea into a real undertaking.
This is not due to a lack of technical basis. On the contrary: the concept has been analyzed in detail, including desalination technologies, energy requirements, possible transport routes, and long-term economic impacts.
The major obstacle is that the complete package involves extremely high costs, gigantic infrastructure, and environmental risks, in addition to a fundamental question: To what extent does it make sense to confront the climate that has shaped this land for millions of years?
The ghost of the “inland sea” and the bitter lesson of the Salton Sea.
The West has already learned a costly lesson about “bringing water to the desert.” It has a name: the Salton Sea. It was born from a technical error in the early 20th century, when engineers tried to divert water from the Colorado River for irrigation.
The river breached the canal system and flooded a large depression below sea level, forming a new inland sea in the California desert.
At first, it seemed like a miracle: the surface reflecting the sun, fish thriving, migratory birds returning, resorts and marinas springing up all around.
The problem was that the Salton Sea had no outlet. Every drop that entered only had one path: evaporationWhen the water evaporated, salt and chemicals remained.
Over time, salinity rose beyond the ocean level. Fish died en masse. Toxic algae spread in the heat.
As the water level dropped, the riverbed was exposed, revealing sediments of salt, pesticides, and heavy metals. Desert winds lifted these particles, creating toxic dust storms that traveled dozens of kilometers and directly affected the health of neighboring communities.
The lesson is harsh and direct: Water in the desert does not automatically create a sustainable ecosystem.Without natural flows, without self-cleaning mechanisms, and without long-term management, water can become a catalyst for degradation, not rebirth.
That’s why any proposal that talks about creating new lakes in Nevada and pumping water… billions of liters Inevitably, it comes down to the same question: will the desert be saved, or will the mistake be repeated on a larger scale?
The “safest” path Nevada has chosen for now: closed-loop reuse.
Faced with the risk of moving forward with the ocean project, Nevada has opted for a more cautious approach: wastewater reuse.
In a state where every mistake with water can have consequences for decades, the current strategy focuses on preserving what already exists.
The system operates on a closed-loop system. Almost all the water used indoors in the Las Vegas area is collected, treated, and pumped back to Lake Mead, the main water source for southern Nevada.
In return, the state is allowed to withdraw additional potable water from the federal system, prolonging the life of each drop, instead of consuming it once and losing it forever.
The result of this mindset is practical: Las Vegas is now described as one of the most water-efficient cities in the U.S. It’s not glamorous.Yes, but it’s a direct impact. Instead of seeking more water, the priority is to lose less.
Where Nevada loses the most water: the outdoors and the war against the lawn.
Even with an efficient closed-loop system, reuse primarily solves the problem of water used inside the home.
The big hole is on the outside. The water that disappears through evaporation is where Nevada loses most of its water, and this puts the state in front of a symbol of the American way of life: the green lawn.
In Las Vegas and other cities in the West, a significant portion of the water doesn’t go to sinks and showers.
It disappears into lawns, gardens, and golf courses under the desert sun. That’s why Nevada started doing something previously considered unthinkable: remove desert grass.
Decorative lawns have been reduced in size and replaced by native landscaping: stones, gravel, cacti, and drought-resistant plants.
This approach, known as zero landscaping, replaces the aesthetic of constant greenery with a design that is compatible with the climate.
And where irrigation still exists, it tends to be done with more precision, using humidity sensors and strict schedules.
Every square meter of grass removed represents thousands of gallons saved per year. It’s a strategy without fanfare, but aligned with reality. In a water crisis, winning isn’t about having more water, it’s about wasting less..
The ultimate dilemma: bring the ocean or accept limits.
Nevada’s recent history shows a shift in mindset.
After decades of dreaming of massive engineering projects, from redirecting rivers to plans for pumping water… billions of liters From the ocean, the state begins to face a difficult truth: water cannot be created infinitely with money and technology alone.
The Pacific proposal remains a viable hypothesis because it offers something alluring: a water source that doesn’t depend on rain, rivers, or geographical borders.
At the same time, it carries costs, energy, brine, and the ghost of repeating past mistakes.
If you were in Nevada’s position, would you resort to pumping billions of liters of water from the Pacific as a last resort, or would you prioritize reuse and waste reduction, even if it limits growth?