Letter: Time for serious dialogue on water

Saturday, Dec. 17, 2005 | 7:27 a.m.

Regarding Hal Rothman's Dec. 11 column on rancher Bob Lewis and the illegal diversion of a Lincoln County stream, I am sympathetic to Rothman's argument. However, I found his remarks on how one enters into a serious dialogue on water usage deficient.

Rothman, a history professor at UNLV, often frames his water usage arguments on cost-benefit analyses that typically side with urban growth. From a strict economic perspective his evidence is irrefutable. But my concern is with the nonquantifiables; those resources that do not lend themselves to such an approach.

Above the aquifer that runs from western Utah to eastern California sit a series of mountain ranges, most of which harbor an abundance of wildlife and species found nowhere else. Within these "sky islands" exist spring networks that could irreversibly be compromised if the draw on the aquifer exceeds a certain unknown quantity. (Keep in mind that this is "fossil water," water left over from the last Ice Age; melt from this winter's snow pack won't hit the aquifer for thousands of years.)

At the risk of invoking too much concern for what Rothman ironically refers to as "precious wilderness," I would like to know how one can be a stakeholder at the "water table" if your values don't fit his economic scheme.

James Lane

Las Vegas