I work on a Mississippi River barge. I don't think we should pump its waters to the West

I’ve seen different letters on the topic of getting Mississippi River water for westerners. Why don’t you get the water from the ocean? It's a lot closer. I know they can convert water from salt to drinking water. By doing so, it would be a lot better since global warming is happening and oceans are rising — this may help the coastlines from flooding! If we send men to the moon, we can do this too.

I work on the Mississippi River on a boat that pushes barges up and down the river for exports and imports. The people that live all along this river and the rest of the country needs this river. Farmers need to get the harvest to export. If you pump the river, it wouldn’t last long, for all the barges that do the transporting could be halted. Then we would have another disaster on hand — a big one! 

I don’t know who comes up with these ideas, but they are crazy. Use the ocean water, convert it, and save the shores from global warming! 

Joey Peterson, Oquawka, Illinois

Do we really need to come to your rescue?

Regarding Friday's letter from David Clark of Las Vegas:

The West is indeed dry and didn't plan for it. The writer forgets one large thing: The water would need to be pumped over the Rockies. 

A set of desalination facilities along the California coast, or in the Gulf of California, and a system to pump the water along the path of least resistance would be a better long-term plan ... along with stopping the expansion of unsustainable cities in the Southwest. 

Just as in the Southeast with hurricanes, the rest of the country shouldn't have to drop everything to save a region that was built in a long-term unsustainable place.

Matt Crea, Maple Grove, Minnesota

California's priorities need rethinking

We need desalination plants, not bullet trains. Californians, wake up!

Ed Levy, Indio