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Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Sun Coverage
There are many reasons why this would never happen. Here are a few.
The arduous process of securing water rights would almost certainly prevent Southern Nevada from tapping the famously blue waters of Lake Tahoe. Consider that after almost a decade pursuing ground water in less populous and less powerful eastern Nevada, the authority still hasn’t won those rights.
Southern Nevadans who haven’t ventured north might not fully grasp Lake Tahoe’s significance to the area. It’s a source of enormous civic pride; as a major tourist attraction, it’s an economic engine for the region; and unlike, say, the Strip, it’s something that locals regularly enjoy.
It’s only a slight overstatement to say a proposal to tap Tahoe would be like Las Vegas asking Arizona if it could use the Grand Canyon as an overflow dump.
Add to that injury the insult that the water would be headed to Las Vegas, and it would prompt a north-south civil war.
Again, for those unfamiliar with the north, its residents don’t think highly of Southern Nevada. They would likely prefer to watch the lake evaporate than give it to Las Vegas.
Questions for Mr. Sun should be sent to page8@lasvegassun.com.
Like I told Jim Gaans years ago, this water issue is very-very simple:
The LV valley has clear rights to use & drink as much Colorado River water it needs, because of its location [a few miles from the river].
Any reasonable court of law or equity would grant an injunction order for LA & Phoenix to reduce their usage, for LV citizens to survive.
However, the LVVWA keep planning their schemes to squander $$$ Billions upon their frivolous pipe dreams!
No, it's not that simple. No matter who you take the water from, there is going to be an immense legal battle. What SNWA like any good strategist has to do is pick their fights. So in the simplest terms, they have to go up against the people with the smallest War Chests who don't have as much financial and legal resources. Once they win, they secure both water rights, as well as prescient for when they go against stronger foes.
Take the Salton Sea for example. It's a lake that was only supposed to fill whenever the Colorado jumped it's banks and flooded the area. Otherwise it should always be dry. Decades of agricultural farming resulting in run-off kept the lake filled and prevented it from drying up naturally. Farmers always hid behind the fallacy that their run off kept the lake's wetlands preserved, ergo they were benefiting the environment. However once Government stepped in and told the farmers to consume less water, and the Environmental groups agreed because they were feeding a naturally diseased wetland that killed more species than it helped sustain, all hell broke loose.
That's just one example. LV doesn't have a whole lot of industry. That means not only do we have less reasons for entitlement to water rights than other cities/regions, we also don't have nearly as many lobby groups to fight for the water either.
So if we ran out and took a whole lot more water from the Colorado, the SNWA would end up in court. Who do you think a judge is going to side with? Big cities that have large populations and prosperous industries that need water for agriculture to sustain life? Or Las Vegas who wastes water on purely ornamental features like huge water fountains up and down the strip, and lawns that we never get to use because it's so hot outside in the summer? We would loose in a heartbeat.
Pick your battles carefully...
News flash: they just found significant amounts of water on the moon. Tell the lawyers.
There is a lot of talk about the looming water shortages in the American southwest and the pipe line from central Nevada to the Vegas valley.
The biggest question of this idea is cost and how long will the aquafier last?
I think there is a better source of water available for the Southwest... The Mississippi river .. if the major players in our area, both public and private were to combine their efforts and do a study on the feasibility of a pipeline connecting a series of reserviors across the arid regions I believe there would be a consensus on its viability.
Expensive? Of course it would be ,but there is enough water going out to sea every day to support millions of new residents and the towns that would spring up around the reservoirs.
If such a pipeline/s followed Interstate hwys 10 and/or 40 right of ways, the cost and impact of such a project would be significantly reduced.
10% of the average daily flow of Mississippi river flow at New Orleans is 50 billion gallons of water,approx 40,000 acre ft.!
Could the county that built such projects as the Panama canal turn the desert into an economic bonanza that would rival some of Americas most prosperous growth spurts?
If all of you people are going to be so critical of the SNWA and the LVVWD and Southern Nevada's water issues... at least get the names of the organizations right. Otherwise, you lose credibility.
It's the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA).
The Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD)
It's not LVVWA or SNWD.
So tired of reading the same critics over and over who post this nonsense and don't even know who they are talking about. Look at your water bill!
Mr. Sun, you forgot something else. Nevada shares Lake Tahoe with California (the state line literally bisects the lake), so not only would SNWA have yet another water war with Northern Nevada, but it would also get in trouble with a state already fighting everyone else and each other over water rights.
We really just need to learn how to stop being so wasteful. Even if we were to succeed in stealing Lake Tahoe's water or the reserves bordering Utah, we'll still end up thirsty because we waste so much water on artificial lakes and golf courses. Let's conserve what we have and rethink our relationship with water. This IS the desert, after all!
Good luck getting water out of the Mississippi River. Since places like Iowa always have the caucus and host such important political events, that's why we've ended up promoting corn-based everything, and why we'll never touch any of the water coming out of there.
Could it be done? Absolutely. But between opposing , radical political groups who are against almost any sort of government work project, as well as all of the Mid-westerners who reject anything that's west of the Rockies, you'd never get any sort of project like this done. Especially when it comes to water. They'd paint us all as sleazy gamblers from Nevada, dirty illegal immigrants from Arizona, and filthy California hippies stealing the most precious resource of all from the lands of good old fashioned, God-Fearing, American Farmers...Water.
Never mind that something like this would probably solve our water needs, and help to pump out all those filthy fertilizers from farms that have turned almost all of the Gulf Cost into a Dead Zone that's harmed commercial fishing. But since the Gulf Coast Dead-Zone is just more "Environmental Propaganda" from California, no hayseeds from the Corn Belt are ever going to change.
We might as well split California into North and South. Then annex Clark County into Southern California with Las Vegas becoming just another suburb. They'd love our Gaming revenue, and we'd love their support for more water from any source. Then we'd see just how much Carson City would miss us...
Either give Las Vegas the water we need, or we'll take our tax revenue elsewhere. After all, we've practically become California already...
Golf Snobchest, I mean Digest, recently had an article on Las Vegas golf and the water issues. One course, I don't remember which, used 320 million gallons in a year. That was almost half of what they used a few years ago. The author figured $42 of every greens fee in Las Vegas went to pay for the water. With almost 50 golf courses in Las Vegas, around 150 in Palm Springs, over 200 in the Phoenix area, and who knows how many others in the deserts of AZ,CA,NV,OR,WA,UT,NM. That's a lot of water for mainly well to do individuals to bust sod while their lazy hind quarters are planted firmly in their golf carts. Another example of the "overtaxed" rich driving up the costs of everyday life for the rest of us and creating future problems that will require more of the little guys money to fix. Which of course the rich people will make money by offering their expensive services to try and fix a problem they caused or by buying up water rights or futures contracts to skim off more riches for themselves.
I play golf so this isn't a rant about those who play the sport. Some of the most spectacular golf courses are in the desert, but it's pretty stupid to every day pour billions of gallons of a precious resource on grass or water hazards and then watch it evaporate along with your future.
Same goes for swimming pools. If you want to swim go to the lake.
Lake Tahoe is a delicate, natural lake, and, one of the few natural lakes in the West. Tapping into it as a large municipal water source would severely damage it because the lake ecosystem has evolved around the delicate inflow and outflow balance. The cycle time for Lake Tahoe water is 650 years; this is an eternity when compared with an artifical lake, like Lake Mead, which was purposefully designed as a municipal water source. Once you take Tahoe water, it's gone. You can't refill it like Lake Mead.
The real crux of the problem is that the Colorado River Compact of 1922 is a hopelessly outdated agreement. It needs to be renegotiated to give priority on water to efficient uses and require municipal water districts use project water to meet minimum standards for conservation. Xeriscaping and municipal water use restrictions for all Colorado River states should be standard, regardless of a state's water allocation. Standards for agricultural crop water efficiency need to be in any renegotiated agreement. The farmers using Colorado water should be growing drought resistant, desert crops. We can transport water intensive, tropical crops into the Southwest much more easily than in 1922; there's little need to grow them here.
A few other "minor" considerations. A bi-state compact between California and Nevada controls Tahoe (2/3rds of the lake is in California). The Federal water master controls lake levels and output into the Truckee River, not northern Nevada.
There is heavily regulated use of Tahoe waters for municipal and industrial and agricultural uses via the Truckee River for Reno, Sparks, and the Lahontan Valley (the nation's first water reclamation project). Because of tribal concerns for Pyramid Lake, the terminus of the Truckee River from Lake Tahoe, the area has been embroiled in trying to finalize an operating agreement for the river for nearly 20 years. That effort has been valiantly led by Sen. Reid so it has received the highest political support. That makes the 10 years spent by the water authority district in rural eastern Nevada pale by comparison.
Tahoe is a national treasure, not just a tourist trap exclusive to northern Nevada residents. There is no comparison of what nature and God have created to the man-made Las Vegas strip. Tahoe is for all Nevadans, north or south and something to be proud of and treasured.
The Lake is susceptible to drought, light winter snow fall, and a myriad of environmental concerns and Federal standards. The cost of building a nearly 500 mile pipeline, rising up 5000 to 6000 feet to get over the Sierra to the Lake is probably cost prohibitive.
Unfair of the Sun to put the blaim on north/south Nevada rivalries. That's a cheap, uninformed southern Nevada shot.
Do your homework and tell the entire story.
The long term solution to Nevada's chronic water shortage is MASSIVE WATER IMPORTS from CANADA.
US Senator John McCain, speaking in Ottawa on June 20, 2008, stated water imports from Canada "would be the defining issue of the 21 st century".
For example, Williston Lake, which sits at 2200 feet above sea level, is the largest man made lake in British Colummbia and re-charges every 2 years. Ten feet of water from this lake would supply 4 million acre feet of pure fresh water annually. There are many similar lakes in British Columbia.
The present Canadian policy against WATER EXPORTS grew out of a FRAUDULENT conspiracy by political insiders, in Canada, who hoped to obtain a WATER EXPORT MONOPOLY by restricting any competition through government imposed bans on export that affected all competitors except themselves.
This conspiracy failed but is is explained at
http://www.waterwarcrimes.com
and
http://www.sunbeltwater.com
To assist the insiders, the British Columbian governemt intentionally violated the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT and the GATT to block exports of fresh water to the USA by all but their selected company.
Internal British Columbia Government documents posted online, for the first time, prove these secret violations of the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT and the GATT
See pdf files at http://www.waterwarcrimes.com
The Canadian media has suppressed the political corruption aspect of the WATER EXPORT issue.
As part of the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT, the US government negotiated access to Canadian fresh water for Americans but Canadian governments have acted, illegally, under international law, to block American access to Canada's fresh water.
For more details visit
http://www.waterwarcrimes.com
The present regime in British Colummbia is actively trying to suppress this information. I was jailed twice because I was working on the file and exposing the internal covernment corruption. My assets were looted my business destroyed by Canada's politically apointed judges. Seven of those judges suddenly died when I began to expose their involvement in the criminal conspiracy. I suspect murder or suicide in three possibly four cases.
We need your help circulating this information
Visit http://www.waterwarcrimes.com
The advantage of using the Mississippi river as a source of water for the American southwest is that it is totally with-in the USA so we wouldn't need to consider the problems of international borders.
Another plus lies in the fact that much of the land between here and New Orleans [after Louisana and East Texas] is public/federal land so acquiring it wouldn't involve the usual problems that private property owners bring up.
As for the 'midwest farmers'.... having lived in Iowa for 58 years I can attest to the many complaints and attempts to get laws passed to stop urban infringement on 'prime farm land' by the midwestern farm groups/ leglislatures.
Anyone who has driven around the desert southwest will realize the unlimited potential for growth that needs only water to create.
Stealing water 100's or 1,000's of miles away is an unfeasible scam because:
1. It cost $Billions to lay pipes;
2. It continually waste megawatts of power to pump; and,
3. It is un-natural, stealing, that destroys your neighbor!
Whatever, the SNWA & LVVWD & their Reclamation [Sanitation] Districts are all stealing you blind by transferring their revenues into corporate scams.
Ever tried to [privately] purchase effluent for irrigation? I have for years. It is availlable, but if you don't run a corporate golf course or casino, they won't contract.
In short, their entire administration are scamming thieves, & Lake Mead is there to use.
Looky - there are a few solutions that might create some water - mostly just that we engage in desalinization so that Calif could get water from the Ocean. The other solutions should result in the national guard from half a dozen states pursuing those who are stealing water. We killed thousands of native Americans and now we want to dry up the farms of northern Nevada or take water from the great American waterway or do some other silly thing. The solution is for the water authority to forbid all irrigation and especially stop Greenspan from watering his lawn. Then they should buy a fleet of moving vans and give free moving to anyone who has been here less than 10 years - move them to St. Louis and Memphis and maybe New Orleans where they can enjoy the Mississippi first hand. Ok, immediately stop all construction - maybe grant one permit for every hundred units or so that are demolished so the rich could buy up empty low end houses, demolish them, and then build their castle. See I can solve all of the problems if you give me a few minutes - my proposal would decrease the back log of houses that can't be sold and decrease rental units until they are back to normal levels of 5% or so vacant. Ok, so here we come Memphis Blues, New Orleans Jazz Fest, and St. Louis women!
Pat Mulroy would drain Lake Tahoe in a second if she could, and it benefited the developers... but she can't. The problem with all the scenarios of pumping water from somewhere else - defoliating the Great Basin, huge pipelines from the Mississippi, importing water from Canada, etc. - is that all these very, very expensive schemes are based on a supply-side assumption. That is, we just need to get more water and then everything will be fine. I think we have to be grownups and decide to live with the existing resource; that is, all the Colorado River users need to make modest cuts in consumption to preserve the stability of the river as a permanent water source.
But that's apparently sacrilege in a town based on the exploitation, destruction and disposal of all kinds of resources, human and natural.
So guess what? Dec. 1 the Clark County Commission, acting as the Las Vegas Valley Water District, is going to raise water rates for working families who have been doing a good job on conservation. That will keep the water flowing to developers and affluent water wasters!
pmmart: as far as tapping the Mississippi--I know what you were thinking regarding reservoirs but pumping that much water that far uphill would be impossible. You're talking about pumping it 2000 feet higher or so.
Frankly, I think the Colorado will start to fill Lake Meade again--do not worry. A few winters like they're having in Colorado and you'll thank god for snowmelt in the spring.
matteo2003i: It's not as hard as you think. William Mulholland was able to move water over mountains by siphoning it, as well as using booster pumps. The hydraulics involved make it possible.
As for Lake Mead filling up, don't bet on it any time soon. Even with huge snow packs over several winters, Lake Mead has to compete with Colorado and hope they don't take all of the water before it gets sent down the river. And even then you've got other man made lakes and reservoirs to compete with as well. If Powel, Mojave, or any other lake needs to be filled first, the water will either be withheld from Lake Mead, or we have to give up the water to other lakes downstream and are not allowed to retain it.
Desalinization has been an option for years for SoCal, but there not going to do it. Don't know if it's true, but I heard from a man who emigrated here from Africa that desalinated water still doesn't taste the same and is not pleasant. Besides that, California politics won't allow any feasible solutions. They've really cleaned up the San Fernando valley's ground pollution over the past couple of decades, and are trying to pump their treated water back into the ground to keep their reservoirs filled, so that they can reclaim the water back through natural artesian wells. Sure the water is *technically* safe to drink as soon as it's discharged from the water treatment plants. But by discharging it back into the ground, it reclaims minerals, and becomes naturally filtered and purified. The whole process takes an estimated 12 years, and makes allot of sense. The goal was to help SoCal stop consuming so much Colorado river water, and to stop wasting what they already have by not just dumping the discharge into the LA River.
But hot-shot up and coming politicians who want to make a name for themselves by sensationalizing these plans in order to thwart them and make incumbent elected officials look bad by telling voters they're drinking toilet water so they themselves could get elected have actually turned public opinion AGAINST this option!
Nothing much will ever get done, because the needs of politicians for personal gain will always outweigh the needs of sustainability and protection for the people.
A little known news fact is that within hours of NASA announcing water on the moon, the Southern Nevada Water District began drawing up plans and proposals to build a pipeline to tap the massive amounts of water expected to be found there.
If a plan to transfer a portion of the Missippi river is a possibility the time to do it is now.
Why?
Because there are millions of construction workers looking for work and billions of dollars worth of construction equiptment setting idle.
A low head dam on the Missippi river above the tide water mark above New Orleand and another lowhead dam a few miles above the 1st one with an upening in the middle of each to allow for shipping would allow the use of most of the water [to just above pool of the lower dam] to be transfered.
There are numerous valleys through the southwest that could be dammed for water storage resevoirs and many of these would create lakes that would settle the discoloration [like lakes Powell and Mead do with the Colorado river]and creat numerous sites for new cities built entirely with 21st century technology.
Potentially the entire FLOW of the Missippi river could be transfered from a point near New Orleans without changing any part of the present make up of the river above the high tide mark.
OOPS!
I accidently hit send instead of edit so excuse the typos.... my bad!
We will NOT run out of water. Water may become very expensive but we will not run out. If it means desalinating and pumping from California, that's what the valley will do. If it means constructing a 3000-mile pipeline from the Hudson, that's what we'll do. New York gets so much rain it overwhelms their sewer system on a regular basis. Country-wide, we don't have a shortage issue, we've got an allocation issue.
Regarding what Northerners think of Southerners, I disagree. Northern (and rural for that matter) Nevada wants little more than to be recognized. Most Las Vegans have never been north of Indian Springs, if that!
Most Northern Nevadans have a serious problem with Clark County as a whole. It's nothing new. I mean come on, the state song doesn't even mention anything about Southern Nevada at all.
Over the years, we've fought and fought with the North over many financial allocation issues. Especially with road construction. The biggest embarrassment being Mitchell Dettloff causing a catastrophic highway accident @ Ann Road & 95. All of that could have been prevented had proper highway barriers had been in place to keep cars from coming into oncoming traffic. But no, without even coming down in person to survey the road, they denied funds, and it cost people their lives. This same thing has been happening for years. Northern Nevada doesn't care a thing about us.
The Coup de grace to all this is Clark County's booming population thanks to the Las Vegas Valley. Not only has the South now gained majority representation and basic control of the state, but we turned Nevada into a Blue State thanks to the influx of residents from more liberal cities. This has not sat very well at all with the staunch republican majority of Northern Nevada, and is pretty much just one more thing they resent about us.
No debate on moving a lot of water into the seven state compact is possible unless you first consider an expansion of the compact. If you think that the 7 state compact was ever meant to be a completed political entity then that is why you can not see into the future that lies just past the Rockies.