Editorial: ‘Waste not, want not’ can work

Thursday, July 10, 2003 | 8:34 a.m.

A week from today staff members of the Southern Nevada Water Authority will suggest forming a panel to study the unthinkable -- an end to growth in the Las Vegas Valley. Growth has dominated the economy here for so long that most people cannot perceive an end to it, especially one that is intentionally brought about.

And how would that be accomplished? By cutting off the water. New master planned communities, apartment complexes, hospitals, businesses -- they all need water. Refuse them water lines and growth comes to a standstill.

Forming a panel and talking about a no-growth policy doesn't mean it will happen right away or ever. But this is what our four-year drought here has finally led to -- serious discussions by officials, as opposed to a handful of vocal citizens, about growth restrictions.

As the Sun's Launce Rake reported Tuesday, a UNLV study in 1992 predicted the valley's economy would be reminiscent of the Great Depression if growth were halted, with unemployment and housing prices shooting way up. One of the study's authors said the same consequences would apply today.

We can't imagine a Las Vegas Valley where the thousands of new arrivals each month are turned away instead of welcomed. Yet discussion of this scenario is now rising to official levels, a fact that underscores the importance of conservation. Advocates of no-growth ask why they should have to conserve when the real problem is all the new people coming here.

Our answer is that we all use water in an area decreed by nature to be dry. And all of us, newcomers and long-time residents alike, have the responsibility to conserve, especially during this drought that shows no sign of ending. Try it, you'll like it -- much more so than the alternative.