Crazy idea has a certain charm to it

7/17/25:

 

My hometown is Houston, and there's an inland port that goes all the way into downtown. Or it once did. Back around the time the Panama Canal opened, the Houston Ship Channel was dredged out to within a few miles of downtown.

I recall seeing an old picture of a ship at dock in downtown Houston, with visible landmarks like the Harris County Courthouse in evidence. The pic I recall was about the time the Canal opened. If you go down to Allen's Landing, you can see where the ships tied up. It looks really different down there.

 

The Ship Channel is one of those interesting ideas that is somewhat like the outback sea idea. How so? You could use tides and such to keep it filled, and to replenish the water a bit so that it won't get so alkaline.

The idea is to dredge a very large pool, in which the tides can overflow, but can only channel back out through a narrow opening. In this way, large amounts of water can be impounded behind a type of dam that can be overflowed during high tide, and re-emerge during low tides, with the water rushing out through the channel.

 

Fresh water can be captured in dams as well in order to provide additional flushing. This is kind of the way the Houston Ship Channel Works. Houston is 50 feet above sea level. How do you get ships up stream, except some way to impound a lot of water to keep them afloat?

The outback sea will require a lot more water than the Houston Ship Channel. You would definitely need a LOT.

 

There are flood control dams in Houston. It rains a lot in Houston, and so I am to understand, does the Australian northern shores. Rainfall will help provide water, but there may need to be much, much more to make a really large lake so far inland.

 

7/15/25:

There's at least a couple videos like this one on the subject of the inland sea down under. Now they've got me thinking about it!

 

What if you could use the natural tidal action and siphoning effect to move massive amounts of water for long distances?

Here's the other video: