Channeling Mississippi River floodwaters to the West

Could Mississippi River floodwaters be channeled west to Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, freeing up Colorado River water to meet growing population demands?

That's the proposal from Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A story in the Las Vegas Review Journal says 350 million acre feet of water flows down the Mississippi in an average year, 25 times the flow of the Colorado. She argues that flood waters could irrigate crops in the Great Plains and West, leaving Colorado River water for downstream users in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and LA. [right, rivers of the U.S. Credit, National Map]. This would also presumably mitigate flooding in the central U.S.

Analysts say such a project would take decades and costs 10s to 100's of billions of dollars.