Editorial: Drought on its way to Southern Nevada

Monday, Nov. 11, 2002 | 9:03 a.m.

It was fortunate that the manager of Denver's municipal water service came to Las Vegas last week for a meeting. While here he reminded us that the West has been experiencing a drought for the past three years. Not just any drought, either. It's one of such severity and duration, Chips Barry said, that climatologists agree it's the worst on record. They say a drought this bad might occur only once every 300 years.

Barry talked about what was happening in Denver, a city whose reservoirs are tiny compared to Lake Mead. He talked of service interruptions in neighborhoods, of expensive surcharges levied on water users, and of Denver's total ban on lawn irrigation. Here in Southern Nevada, owing to the bounty of Lake Mead, we haven't really much noted the drought. But Barry reminded us that it's the Colorado River that makes the lake possible, and that the snow melts and rain that make the river possible have been scant. We should think long and hard about what he said. With no end in sight to the drought, our day of reckoning is coming. The lake level has been dropping, and so should our water use -- beginning now.