How soon before they start pumping and transferring water from the Great Lakes to the West??

[Hugh_Lebowski]

14. With serious political will, I'd bet it could be done in a single dozen years.

Yes, it would cost a shit-ton, I guess in the low trillions, like 2-4. And a lot would have to happen through eminent domain, and environmental impact reports would need to be done on a highly expedited basis. This would, I believe, be the greatest obstacle. Along with people protesting you're 'stealing their water', even though we're supposed to be one Nation. Pay everybody enough though, they'll quiet down. Look at Alaska and their oil.

Also if you could supply AZ and southern NV (i.e. not pipe across the Rockies) a lot more of the native water could be left up there for use rather than flowing downstream, so may not need to get the water up that high.

And I suspect we absolutely have the technology, but feel free to enlighten me on what technological obstacles would be faced?

Note I'm not saying "I favor this", only that I think it can physically be done for sure, and reasonably quickly, if the will existed.