Found a couple hundred miles away, it can be easily piped in, and without it the party could be over in one of the nation’s fastest growing cities.
An excerpt.
Editorial: Quenching Las Vegas
Gambling town bets on rural groundwater
- Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Nevada's water future is about to be settled through a historic set of hearings in the state capital, Carson City. Las Vegas will grow beyond its water supply unless the city comes up with more water. So it has taken a page out of California's water history books.
The city has found a water source a couple hundred miles away to the north, purchased vast tracts of land and now wants to move the water through $2 billion worth of new pipelines. But first in Carson City, Las Vegas must show how it can claim the water and that shipping it won't harm rural Nevada.
Audacious? Outrageous? Perhaps. But by its scale, the water scheme is downright modest compared to the plumbing now taken for granted in California, namely the aqueduct that carries water from the Sierra's Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Or the federal aqueduct that pumps Delta water into the San Joaquin Valley.
Water tends to get moved long distances in the arid West. Consider what options Las Vegas has.
Southern Nevada is dangerously dependent on a dubious water source, the Colorado River. As people moved to the West, states divided the waters of this river. Nevada, last to the proverbial trough, got a small share. Even worse, the government managed to divide more water supply than exists. Don't forget that there's a lingering drought in this basin. So the idea of relying even more on the Colorado River is a water strategy that makes roulette look like a shrewd investment.
Las Vegas isn't next to an ocean, so desalination isn't a first alternative. Conservation is a must.
But Las Vegas is already paying customers to rip out their lawns. Even with aggressive conservation, the community still will need more water. But from where?
The only untapped source is far away and underground. In remote places such as Nevada's Spring Valley in White Pine County, the Las Vegas water authority has bought huge ranches and filed for underground water rights. Now a state water engineer in Carson City has to bless or nix the pump-and-pipe proposal.
