Las Vegas Water Battle: 'Crops vs. Craps'

[beevul]

Las Vegas taps groundwater from the valley beneath it and surface water from the Colorado River nearby. But neither is enough for the region's phenomenal growth. The valley has nearly doubled in population since 1991, to 1.5 million. Las Vegas gambling resorts now attract close to 40 million visitors a year.

So, for close to two decades, Mulroy has been working persistently to acquire "rights" to water in rural counties north of the Las Vegas Valley. She noted back in 1991 that there is an economic imperative to taking water from rural counties largely dependent on ranching, and bringing it to the big city.

"It'll become a dry desert valley," says Dean Baker, a rancher at the southern end of Snake Valley, 70 miles south of Callao and about 200 miles north of Las Vegas. "The reason there's ranching in this valley is because there's water from these springs."

Baker takes visitors to a spring-fed pond and watering trough to illustrate his fear. Wild horses, geese, ducks and sheep found water there until a rancher expanded his operation and dug a new well. The pond is now bone dry and lined with crispy and skeletal cat-tails and rushes. The trough is empty.

"It's happened around everyplace we're pumping," Baker confesses. "Probably if southern Nevada hadn't come along with this huge plan to do many times as much we'd have tried never to let anybody know what we'd done. But it's the best example of why we know won't work."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10953190&ft=1&f=1003

This is just the beginning of the beginning. With a large part of the country in drought, some like LA the worst in over a hundred years, I believe were going to be hearing stories like this on a much more frequent basis. While not yet critical, how far from critical are we in terms of time before things do get ugly?

[cobalt1999]

1. It's an easy choice for Nevada

The value of 40 million tourists and billions of dollars of spending vs. the value of the limited crops produced there. Craps wins that battle easily.

LA needs to build desalination plants like much of the middle eastern desert countries.

[MADem]

4. I agree with that totally. If we can build oil pipelines, we sure as hell can build

water lines from desalinization plants to arid areas. It's not as though the technology is so frigging difficult that we can't manage this sort of effort. We need to get on the ball and do it.

[The2ndWheel]

8. But should we?

Now obviously we have no choice today since there are so many people there now because nobody important asked that question from the get-go, but we should start asking that question more. Yes, because we can will mean more control over life, and more altering of environments(which created this problem, which means it'll fix it), but that's because we only wonder if we can or cannot.

[MADem]

9. I think we should. We're changing the land now by stealing the water from it.

When we built the Hoover Dam we changed it, too. Why create another desert to go with the first one? I can't see that helping matters...

I'd as soon not have the bulk of our west look like Saudi Arabia. We have the ability to stop that, it will cost money, but it'll cost less than this stupid war does.

Life isn't static. When the Romans piped in water they changed the landscape, too. It's our nature to change things (unless we want to run around bareass naked and live in caves, that is); we can only hope that we do it in ways that nurture the environment, not harm it. The more green things growing on this planet, the better--we're burning off the planet's green lungs at a horrible rate each year--we need to reverse that and we need water to do it.

[The2ndWheel]

13. Rome didn't last either

"we can only hope that we do it in ways that nurture the environment, not harm it."

We're our own self-appointed stewards of the planet. Yet the more we attempt to control it, the more problems we cause. As somone I once heard say, "I can't see that helping matters... ", I'm going to agree.

[MADem]

17. But the acqueduct did. Landscaping and land management isn't politics.

Sorry, I don't vote for turning Nevada into Saudi Arabia. I've been to both, and Nevada is nicer. I'd rather it stay that way.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

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[Tesha]

11. People can migrate back out again...

> Now obviously we have no choice today since there are
> so many people there now...

Of course we still have a choice: People can migrate back
out again as water becomes increasingly scarce. It's not
like a drought will strike like a hurricane, water today
but none tomorrow. Instead, there'll just be the same
amount of water (or a bit less) as the years go by, and
people should eventually choose to a) stop arriving and
b) start leaving.

Las Vegas is one of those places that is essentially
uninhabitable and is only kept habitable by a non-
sustainable use of energy and destruction of the
environment.

LA may well fall into that category as well as time
goes by.

Here's an important clue that humanity just doesn't
seem to get: On a finite planet, unlimited growth
is impossible.

Tesha

[The2ndWheel]

14. We'll have to find somewhere to put them

"On a finite planet, unlimited growth is impossible."

Only if you're dealing with physical reality.

[Tesha]

16. Maybe someplace that has a sufficiency of water?

> We'll have to find somewhere to put them

True, but maybe that can be someplace that has a
sufficiency of water? Such places still exist,
although they may not be co-located with immense
gambling venues.

Tesha

[shimmergal]

19. Actually, this is the ideal place

to get one's energy from solar and wind power. As electricity prices keep rising, I expect more homeowners to turn to totally solar power, which can be self-contained --and/or regret they hadn't installed it already.

Water's a tougher problem. The whole Southwest is in a sustained drought, which may or may not be permanent. Offhand, I'd say we should look into desalination, even though LV is several hundred miles from the ocean. We _do_ get occasional huge rainstorms (not even once a year, though) and most of that water floods the streets and then evaporates. There may be some technology that could capture and use it (not much naturally gets captured in rivers, lakes, or ground soil) but I'm not aware of it yet.

[NashVegas]

20. That's About as Politically Viable As Letting the Mississippi Reclaim New Orleans

Although it is the ecologically wiser.

[Tesha]

24. Eventually, the politics of it won't matter. Reality trumps political wishful thinking. (NT)

[Taverner]

2. Thing is, there are some valleys in NV that get tremendous rainfall

In fact I think I remember some statistic that NV gets more rainfall than anywhere else in the US? Correct me if I'm wrong.

But why not build reservoirs out there?

[shimmergal]

18. No, Nevada gets the_least_ rainfall

of any state in the U.S.

There are, however, some areasin the north that get big snowfalls in the winter.

[SoCalDem]

3. "..."It'll become a dry desert valley"..."

Y'mean like it always was before??? for millions of years?? :rofl:

[MADem]

6. Well, he's talking about Snake Valley, 200 miles away from Vegas

and the fact that water demand is drying up springs that used to flow there and affecting the habitat for the native animals.

It's not a profoundly verdant valley, but it isn't "desert" either--see photo here:

http://www.schweich.com/imagehtml/IMGP1377sm.html

[donsu]

5. it's going to get dryer faster then they think

global warming is causing everything about the weather to be stronger and stronger and it's happening faster and faster

as Chritine Brooke-Rose says in Amalgamemnon:

"Let men do more and more with less and less or less and less less and less well, the faster the media the slower their reactions in the rush with which they will speed through history."

and

"During the night the buelletins will repeat themselves, slightly altering the emphasis, doing more and more with less and less then less and less with nothing."

and

"Further news may come in any moment and we shall of course interrupt the programmes as soon as we receive new information and we'll all go on as if."


Las Vegas better party now

[Zookeeper]

10. ....

Perfect. But, heartbreaking since there is no reason to think it will ever stop. :(

[RestoreGore]

7. Why do Las Vegas casinos need fountains?

And yes, if population continues to grow there at the pace it is now with people continuing to waste it, it could get ugly regarding water. There is no excuse for the wasteful practices of people and others ( which is why I mentioned casinos) and there is only so much water you can divert before you not only run out without the water being replenished due to drought, but before you cause environmental damage and devastation to other species that depend on that water as well.

Southwest Water Woes

Recommended.

[jwirr]

12. It occurred to me that this is the time to start planting thousands of

trees to prevent the desertification of more of the west and midwest. I would like to know what happens during desalinization with the by-products, etc.?

[Xithras]

22. Trees require water.

If you pump out the water and lower the water table, the trees cannot reach the groundwater. In an area with 4 inches of rain a year, trees cannot survive without a high water table.

As recently as the past 2000 years, vast areas of the Middle East and Africa had thin forests holding back the desert. The ground dried up, the trees died, and the desert advanced.

If you want to see an example, look up the Vlie Forest in Namibia. 500 years ago it was a living Acacia forest in southern Africa. The water went away, the trees died, and 500 years later the dead skeleton of the forest is still standing in the desert as an eerie reminder of the importance of water to every kind of life on Earth.

[jwirr]

26. I was not talking about planting in the desert. I was suggesting that

those states on the edges around the desert may benefit from planting trees. For one thing trees help to hold the water levels.

[Decruiter]

15. When I heard good ole' T Bone Pickens from Texas was getting into water and out of oil

I saw the writing on the wall. Water is going to be bigger than oil.

Always go with those in the know. T Bone, "bless his heart", he knew and all he did was just move on it.

Bastard. Slime. Ummmmm there are just not enough words............

[MADem]

21. You're right. Hell, in my lifetime, we've gone from water being a free thing to

something that is marketed, with brand names.

If you predicted that to any adult in the room while I was growing up, they'd have laughed their asses off.

Of course, who ever thought people would market BASICS, like water, or for that matter, AIR?

The FDA has a bone to pick with the Oxygen Bar crowd: http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/602_air.html

[Decruiter]

23. Yes, you pretty much said it all. Who ever in our lifetime would have

believed what is happening now? Incredible, simply amazing, makes one's head spin off.

[Tesha]

25. Marketing air...

> Of course, who ever thought people would market BASICS,
> like water, or for that matter, AIR?

Mel Brooks: a man far ahead of his time!



Tesha

[MADem]

28. I'm waiting for America to go to the European "bring your own butt wipe" standard

In Europe, and the Middle East for that matter, you wouldn't think about going out without a small packet or two of KLEENEX handy in the car or pocket or pocket book. You keep them handy in case you have to go to the public crapper, which NEVER has butt wipe in it, unless you're crapping in the shitter off the bar at a facility that is of the quality of say, an INTERCONTINENTAL Hotel. You can buy them off the bozos in the street, who sell cigarettes, sometimes, or warm sodas, or other goofy what-have-you items, often while you are stopped at a light or stuck in traffic. You generally overpay for them, it's almost like a subtle charity for people with no safety net. Of course, when you need that small packet, you're happy to have it, even if you overpaid!

[MadHound]

29. Gotta keep those ultimately unsustainable desert cities going at all costs

And keep that almighty dollar rolling in:eyes:

Somehow I suspect that within the next fifty-one hundred years these desert cities will finally be abandoned as the unsustainable white elephants that they truly are. Sadly, they'll take down many currently habitable areas, along with the animal, plant and human life with it before they go down.