Ship the Mississipi to Colorado?

Before you say it, Gary Hausler already knows you think he's crazy. He's been laughed at, brushed off, shut out and talked to as if he had just busted loose from the looney bin by more people than he can remember over his idea for solving Colorado's looming water supply shortage. His plan: Build a two-story-tall, 1,200-mile-long pipeline from the Mississippi River to Colorado's Front Range to slake the state's thirst. Call it the Really, Really, Really Big Straw. "It's completely different than anyone's ever talked about before," Hausler, a rancher and former mining engineer from Gunnison, said. "It's traditional in Colorado when you need water on the eastern slope, you go to the Western Slope." Hausler is pushing this pipeline idea on his own, traveling to water roundtables, river districts and other members of the state's water establishment to make presentations on his idea. He gave a presentation to a state legislative committee and to staffers at Denver Water on Wednesday...Denver Post