Letter: Pipeline is not the only solution

Saturday, Aug. 19, 2006 | 7:28 a.m.

The headline on the front page of Wednesday's Las Vegas Sun, "A matter of survival," should scare the citizens of Nevada.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, seems to believe that the only thing that could stop growth in the valley is a limit to the supply of water. And she believes that her $2 billion pipeline project is the only way to provide it.

It is much more likely that growth will be halted by a limit on how many casinos can be supported and by the availability of land and energy, long before we run out of water. And I haven't heard about anyone talking to the alfalfa and cotton farmers in Arizona and California about how much it would cost to buy some of their water.

I think Ms. Mulroy does a great job running the Water Authority, but someone with more expertise in demographics and fiscal reality needs to determine whether we can afford an enormously expensive project that we probably don't need. And the decision to spend that kind of money should made by the governor and included in the state budget.

Tom Keller, Henderson

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