Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Home News

Deep inside the rock tunnels, water conservationists from around the world learn about the building process and history of the Hoover Dam from tour guide Kathy Stewart, right, on Friday.

By Cydney Cappello (contact)

Sat, Oct 11, 2008 (1:30 a.m.)

When all of the exhibits were torn down Friday after the first-ever WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Expo, some attendees got to tour one of the country's greatest feats in water technology: the Hoover Dam.

And that tour made the point hit home.

“All week we’ve been held up in a room talking about drought, conservation, demand management, and you see the actual decline of water levels in one of our biggest reservoirs and it drives home the fact at how imperative it is to reduce our usage," said Nate Adams, water resources conservation manager for the city of San Clemente, Calif., "and if we don’t, it will have a lot of negative impacts."

Not only did the 25 visitors see the stark-white ring at Lake Mead -- remnants of higher water levels -- but they also learned about the history and building of the dam.

"I think it’s interesting, the dynamic here, that all that (water is) shared between different states and they’re all fighting for different percentages. I think it’s fascinating,” said Damien Connell, of City West, a Melbourne, Australia-based water conservation company. Connell, getting his first visit to Hoover Dam, was a speaker at the three-day convention.

More than 1,000 people signed up to participate in the inaugural convention, which brought together water conservationists from all over the world. They hoped to share ideas, and take some away, as well.

Joe DiMaggio, of the California American Water Company, said he enjoyed opening keynote speaker Prince Feisal Ibn Al-Hussein of Jordan and Chris Brown, from the California Urban Water Conservation Coalition, whose presentation focused on sensor water faucets.

“I recently installed those in our offices and actually found out today that they use more water," DiMaggio said. "According to the conservation council, when people turn on a faucet they don’t turn it on all the way and so they’re saying that it’s using less water than the sensored faucets."

DiMaggio wasn't the only one who took away new insight. Before the bus arrived back at South Point Hotel, where the convention-goers stayed during their time in Southern Nevada, there already was talk of next year’s conference.

“I think it was good getting together all the professionals across a range of industries," Connell said. "It was quite a good start."