It’s an uphill battle! The fight is between water and gravity. Which will win?

Southern California is a place for plants to grow. People love California’s grapes, nuts, and fruit. But California needs rain. Farmland is dusty. Plants are dying.

California has an aqueduct. It carries water to big cities. That water could help the plants. But to get to them, it needs to flow backwards.

Water always flows downhill. Aqueducts use gravity to move that water. They are not meant to work backwards. Ever. An engineer will tell you that!

The backwards plan would deliver water from where there is much to where there is little. People could store it for emergencies. Powerful engines would push the water upstream. Farmers could water thirsty fields.

The gravity-defying water plan sounds new. But it isn’t. State officials pumped water backwards one other time. It was in 1983.

Officials hope they need the backwards plan just this year. But what if the land gets dry again? They want to be ready.

More to Know

Many old waterways depended on siphons. Siphons use water pressure and gravity to move water. They work even when the water must flow uphill. But for a siphon to work, one end of the pipe must be higher than the other. Imagine that you want to drain a kiddie pool. You stick one end of a garden hose into the pool. You drape the hose over a lawn chair. The hose makes a U-shape. Here’s the important part. The other end of the hose must be lower than the surface of the pool water. You could put it down the hill. Or hang it over the edge of the deck. Water pressure and gravity will force water up over the chair. Then it will come out the other end of the hose. Voila! Empty pool.