Water levels in the Great Lakes have trended higher, not lower. No one is going to steal the water (thank goodness for Canada). Plus it would be insanely costly to build a pipeline and pump water all the way to the SW.

Six quadrillion gallons of beautiful unsalted water. If somehow spread evenly over the lower 48 states, it would be 9 and a half feet deep. A mind boggling amount of fresh water.

We do have the water to spare. Recently, Lake Michigan was up by over 2 feet causing a lot of shoreline destruction. One single inch of Lake Michigan water is 790 billion gallons of water. Lake Superior is high too. If rainfall caused the lake levels to fall too much, the St Lawrence could be restricted marginally with no damage.

But any “stealing” of Great Lakes water would be met with ferocious resistance by US GL States, Canada, and indigenous tribes.

Why? Because politicians cannot be trusted.

It will be many many years before the Great Lakes water will significantly help other parts of the country. So they will need to look for any and all other options.