Beyond Wind Plan, Pickens Eyes Pipelines in Drought-Ridden U.S.
By Michael Milstein
Published on: July 25, 2008
Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens recently detailed his plan to wean America off foreign oil by blanketing the Great Plains with wind turbines. But Pickens also has a lesser-known plan that is centered on another commodity, one every bit as vital to America's future as energy—water. If it all works out, his water plan could remake Pickens as a whole new kind of baron.
Pickens is in the planning stages of a $1.5 billion initiative to pump billions of gallons of water from an ancient aquifer beneath the Texas Panhandle and build pipelines to ship them to thirsty cities such as Dallas. So far, no city has taken up his water company, Mesa Water, on the offer. But company officials and experts agree that a continuation of the drought impacting large portions of the United States could turn Pickens into something of a water baron. His yet-to-be-built pipeline would follow the same 250-mile corridor as electric lines carrying power from his wind farms. Pickens prompted the creation of a public water supply district, run by his employees, that can claim private land for the pipeline route through eminent domain.
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Pickens is not pioneering the use of big pipelines to transport water: A 330-mile pipeline in Australia supplies water to 100,000 people and California moves water from its northern rivers to its southern deserts with a massive network of reservoirs, aqueducts and pumps. Even in the Texas Panhandle, 323 miles of pipeline deliver water from Lake Meredith to Amarillo, Lubbock and other cities. Texas law allows private companies to pump water and sell it to cities; some have done so on much smaller scales than Pickens plans to do. But his project may become the biggest, with its profitability depending on coming municipal desperation caused by shrinking supply.
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Mesa Water would pump its water from the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground water reservoir in North America with about 100 times as much water as Lake Mead holds when full. The company says it's merely delivering unused water to an area that can use it, not so different from oil, which has already made Pickens a fortune.
For its part, Mesa says it can deliver enough water to supply 1.5 million Texans at a competitive price without drawing the aquifer down even halfway for 125 years. Though the price may not seem like a bargain now, it may be only a matter of time.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4275059.html 
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