Sitting here at 3am because u can sleep makes you think of strange things so here goes.
With the current drought situation, the lakes being the way they are,ramps closing daily, population
getting bigger by the day, and with more and more water being used,why hasn't Texas developed
a series of water desalination plants along the coast. Now I don't know if this has been done or what
but you would think someone has brought this up in the past several years. Whats the difference between
building a new lake or one of these plants. Personally I would like to see plants up and down the coastline
dumping water into existing lakes, then moving that water to another lake then into Dallas
Ex. Build a huge plant between Houston and Port Arthur, this plant would pump water to Livingston, from there
it would be pumped into Limestone, from there into Chambers, then maybe Cedar Creek, then Dallas.
Sure it would be expensive, but you pass that along into everybodies water bill. Think about this for a second
Would you pay an extra 20.00 a month to make sure your favorite lake(s) have plenty of water, and maybe not go thru
a drought again.

Anyway just throwing this out there, maybe this has been done I don't know

I'd pay an extra $250 a month to have Choke Canyon, Falcon, and Amistad to fill back up...

or why not divert some mississippi water to us, the river always flows and taking 5 million gals a day would not make a bit of difference to it.

lake of the pines to fork to tawakoni to dallas. all they have to do is run a pipeline along I20 through la.

Hey Big Guy, 3am is for sleeping, not thinking !!!! Give me a shout when u get this far east & we'll grab a bite !!

3 am is breakfast time need to be cooking sausage, bacon, eggs, and pancakes, then worry about this.

Yeaitsme, I too have wondered that. It looks like california has a big one that should go online in 2016.

Why Texas hasn't done it is beside me. Maybe it's in the plans.

Desalination plants are in use all over the world, I just don't get it why we aren't doing it.

im glad i have a well....i vote divert the mississippi, might have a little cleaner/clearer water on the texas gulf coast. two birds one stone

http://www.livescience.com/43531-carlsbad-desalination-plant-scrutiny.html

"The Carlsbad Desalination Project, now under construction in San Diego County, will be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere when it goes online in 2016. The $1 billion plant is expected to produce up to 50 million gallons (190,000 cubic meters) of freshwater a day, fulfilling about 7 percent of the region's water demand."

"The trouble is, that cost is almost double what the agency now pays for water, and will raise ratepayers' bills by about 10 percent, according to NBC News.

That rate hike has some critics of the Carlsbad desalination project crying foul. "The only way to make desal[ination] work is if there's some guarantees that the price of water can be lowered," Leila Monroe, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, told CNBC."

Of course in california there's going to be a fight from the environmentalists, but if I read this right, they're predicting only a 10% increase in what people currently pay?

Bitching about paying 10% raise in water (life's numero uno necessity) yet it costs half a million to live in a three bedroom house out there lol.

Projects to deal with oil field water "cleansing" are also under testing stages in Texas. 10 percent cost increase, if true, would be a no brainer.

The plants on the coast would save a ton of water on the Brazos river chain, I would think that Dow and Dupont along the other chemical companies could damn well afford it. Our state leaders could make this happen but to many kick backs and perks. 3-4' out of Amistad would fill up O H Ivie. This would help Hubbard creek as Abilene could use Ivie water.I know it would cost several hundred million but all of the west Texas towns plus grants could pay for it. It can be done because they pump oil all over the world up and down hill.

How bout a lock and dam system along the trinity river?? Similar to the red river system, but possibly a smaller scale. Set the water level at elevation where it only backs up into the lowest river bottom areas and sloughs. It should be long enough for 3 pools. The locks could control the water flow. Seems like doing that could hold tons of water around the DFW area. Just a thought!!!!!

yeaitsme..ever try Zzzzzz. At Walmart they sell a knockoff for 1/2 the price that helps me go to sleep some nights when my mind is all a flitter with ideas.

5 million gallons does not really get you a lot of water from any river or lake. The Mississippi would have to give up a lot more than that to make an impact.

I can just hear the environmentalists going crazy talking about a lock system on the Trinity. That would probably be a harder sell than any new reservoir.

So your idea might actually be the easier sell as taking water from the gulf would not make the "greens" as unhappy as any of the other ideas offered in this post.

So how can we get that on the ballot for next November?

Since the discovery of water for profit outside of normal water supply, I would think the building of these plants would free up some "water for consumption" and it would then become "water for sale".

The selling of water is here to stay, there is a very strong market for it and as our population grows in Texas and along with that, our industries grow, then more water will be needed. Municipalities are all about making as much money as they can when there is a source of revenue available.

The real issues started when we slowed down building reservoirs state wide. A lot of that had to do with all the conservation efforts that came along since the 80's that made it harder to build new lakes. We did such a good job of front loading our water storage capabilities after the droughts of the 50's, I think we actually thought the situation we are in today couldn't happen. But it did and now we have to figure this mess out.

The last 2 "major" reservoirs built in the entire state were O.H. Ivie (1990) 19,000 acres and Lake Cooper (1991) 17,000 acres. That has been 23 years ago, and the population of Texas was 16,986,510 in 1990 and the population was 25,145,561 in 2010. Do the math, we have not kept up with the growth of our population and throw in a drought and we are in this dire situation today.

We need to build more lakes, it's a simple supply and demand problem. If you have more demand you need a larger supply. In the meantime until we can "catch up" on our supply problem, we need some help from God with some rains and we need some hardcore conservation efforts.

Since so much of our economy is supported by industries that buy and use a lot of water, it's kind of hard to say let's stop selling them water. That's not realistic. A lot of people would be out of work and the state as a whole would suffer.

I think we need to explore reclaimed water usage and look at beefing up our water conservation efforts and enforcing them with a no tolerance approach.

Bottom line is, like our road systems, our water supplies have out grown our usage and we need to get in gear and catch up.

What ever happened to the new lake that was suppose to start construction this fall around bonham?