Howdy! I hope y'all have had a relatively uneventful trip to Vegas and are not wilting in the 100˚+ heat. Given how many impeachment petitions I have signed, I find it amazing that I'm still allowed on airplanes these days. I'll share a little secret about the West with you. Water flows uphill - - towards money. Las Vegas is in one of the driest regions of North America; yet water is everywhere - in swimming pools, in fountains, and in a zillion hotel and home bathrooms at the turn of a faucet. Where does all of this water come from??
Spring Valley North of Pioche
Photo - Collection of JohnnyGunn
Well, it sure doesn't come from anywhere near Vegas. Las Vegas gets only a bit more than 4 inches of precipitation a year.
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/... Okay, okay - Lake Mead is pretty close, but the water in Lake Mead comes from the high mountains of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.
When the Colorado River Compact was negotiated among the Colorado Basin states in the 1920s, Las Vegas was little more than a few shacks alongside the railroad. Nevada, with few river miles and a miniscule contribution to the total river flow, received the smallest share of Colorado River water. See Norris Hundley's Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West. http://www.history.ucla.edu/... By the 1990s, Las Vegas had become the fastest growing city in the United States and began to exceed Nevada's water allotment. Vegas, more properly the Southern Nevada Water Authority, is forced to buy, beg, borrow, or steal water from other compact states.
What can Las Vegas do? You can create a mirage of Ancient Rome or New York, but you can't create water. And access to water is crucial to maintaining any future development in southern Nevada. More than a decade ago, the SNWA recognized this challenge. It sought and successfully gained water rights from the Nevada State Engineer to deep water aquifers in a four-county region of east-central Nevada - roughly between Pioche and Great Basin National Park.
I have just finished cycling across central Nevada. Even though much of this portion of the state gets a whopping 14 inches of precipitation - and the high mountains even more - it is still a dry ecosystem with impermanent and scattered sources of water. Nearly two weeks ago I had snow north of Pyramid Lake, but perennial streams are rare to nonexistent. There were many stretches where I would cycle 70 or 80 miles between water.
The clearest parallel to what may soon occur in Nevada is the story of the Owens Valley in California. Nearly a hundred years ago, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power bought up water rights in the Eastern Sierra depriving an entire region of its vital water. Without water farms and communities dried up and blew away. Mono Lake fell to dangerously low levels before the California Supreme Court ruled that Los Angeles must allow sufficient water to remain in the lake. Owens Lake turned into an alkali desert. http://www.ovcweb.org/...
Proponents of the water transfer from eastern to southern Nevada argue that the deep aquifer in question will have no impact upon surface water or shallow wells. No one knows the recharge rate of this aquifer - most likely thousands of years. The most studied aquifer - the Oglalla in the Great Plains - continues to diminish at an alarming rate. And the Oglalla is in a region with far more precipitation. http://www.snwa.com/... The term water "mining" rather than "pumping" is more appropriate in this case since the water will never be replaced.
The people of rural east-central Nevada are up in arms. Senator Reid has pushed bills through Congress supporting the water diversion. The State Engineer of Nevada supports the water grab. But a region that loses its water loses it future. Despite the difficult economic conditions facing residents of these counties, they have voted to tax themselves to fight the water transfers. Everyone involved realize that it is for keeps. Feel free to contact Kaen Rajala, Coordinator for the White Pine County Economic Development Council for more information. wpcedc@mwpower.net.
It's a question of fundamental proportions. Please consider this each time you use water in Las Vegas. One community's pleasure is another's survival. http://nevada.sierraclub.org/...
With best wishes - Johnny G. - on the road.