Letter: Work with California can avoid water crisis

Sunday, Aug. 20, 2006 | 7:43 a.m.

This is in response to the Aug. 16 Las Vegas Sun article headlined "A matter of survival":

I read, with great interest, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy's prediction that uncontrolled growth in our valley will stop in 2013 if the agency's plans to pump ground water south from rural Nevada aren't approved.

I believe that the citizens of Las Vegas could speed this up a few years if we begin a letter-writing campaign to our elected representatives. I see no reason to wait until 2013 to be so blessed. I would love to visit my daughter in the northwest valley without suffering white-knuckle syndrome to get there. We were able to do that before developers began the wholesale purchase of our elected representatives.

I believe that we should take the billions that she has set aside for the pipeline into our northern neighbors' land, and take a suitcase full of this money west to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's digs and show him the value of desalting and purifying sea water.

I believe that a system could be designed that would treat 1,000 acre-feet per day. If we build it for him in exchange for an equal amount of California's share of the Colorado River water, using this as a basic plan, there would be no losers.

Larry Phillips, Las Vegas