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Water should be top priority
Monday, Feb. 6, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Water, water, nowhere, and not a drop to drink. The call is out once again that Lake Mead will go thirsty because the Colorado River is not getting water from the mountains. A few hundred miles away, we have the Pacific Ocean with a few gallons to spare. All that has to be done is to run a huge pipeline system and put a plant in between to remove the salt and run the pure water into Lake Mead. Within a short time, Lake Mead would be full to the brim.
You say we can not do that because it would take too much money. We need the money to fight no-win wars. We have to kill terrorists because that is what we do. Kill one terrorist and a thousand more pop out of the sand hating us even more.
When I was in the Navy, we would take fresh water before we went on a cruise. Two weeks out to sea, we would run out fresh water. The engineering department would take in sea water and turn it into fresh water. I would drink it out of the water fountain, make it into coffee, which we were never without, and the cooks used it in their cooking. I lived on that purified sea water for years. I am 78 years old and still alive. Water is more important than bullets.
Discussion: 18 comments so far…
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John,
I, too, am ex-Navy and know what you speak of. But there is no need to extract fresh water from the Pacific and send it to Lake Mead. Why would you want to do so in the first place?
The vast majority of water from Lake Mead is used by California. If California can establish desalination plants then there would be no need for them to use water from Lake Mead to begin with and the lake would quickly return to full capacity.
People in other parts of the country are quick to say we should never have built a city in the desert without an adequate water supply. What they fail to take into account is that Southern California is ALSO a desert and could not exist without water from Lake Mead. (Those who doubt that statement should read up on why so many streets and other features are named "Mulholland" in SoCal.)
Personally, I'd like to see us tell California to jump off a cliff and force them to develop economical desalination by cutting their access to the Colorado River in half.
This is a desert stop trying to green it up.
Stop people from moving here
This is a desert get over it
Move people away from here to places where is natural water sources
Isreal and its scientists clean and purify human waste to drinking standards that meet/exceed USA standards.
It can be done when people so inclined put their minds to doing it.
Carmine A. DiFazio
Issue #1-SNWA and its agents, need to do a better job of negotiating Nevada's water allotment. And if they cannot, let's get people in who can!
Issue#2-It is a desert here, and there should be a common sense PLAN by the Planning Commission to limit growth to what is sustainable. Why would they permit Builder Rhodes construct MORE houses, when water is scarce and limited??? The citizens of this valley are opposed to this proposed project near Red Rock, yet the Planning Commission is considering/possibly allowing it. Oh the shame!
There should be a massive outcry to dethrone the Planning Commission should they permit Rhodes to build when water is uncertain. Who are they serving?
Blessings and Peace,
Star
patsy mulroy and her gang of thieves dont want ANY changes to the status quo. remain stupid and compliant, thats all the water company expects you to do. pat and the gang will take care of the rest.
john; sorry, air force. USN, never again.
"A few hundred miles away, we have the Pacific Ocean with a few gallons to spare. All that has to be done is to run a huge pipeline system and put a plant in between to remove the salt and run the pure water into Lake Mead."
Tominsky -- what boftx said!
The root problem is the Colorado River water rights, settled a century or so ago. Large volume desalination technology may not have been as advanced then as it is now. Since southern California is also mostly desert, better to have them relinquish their rights and leave more for us upstream.
"Why would they permit Builder Rhodes construct MORE houses, when water is scarce and limited??? The citizens of this valley are opposed to this proposed project near Red Rock, yet the Planning Commission is considering/possibly allowing it."
star -- maybe because to that commission money is more important than water or our future. Welcome to government, aka Organized Greed.
"In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 79, 1787-88
We should be taking that money we are going to use for the North to South water pipeline and make a deal with California to build desalination plants and then let them sign over some of their water rights to the State of Nevada.
Star, I would think as a teacher you would know better then most that the SNWA had and has no authority of any kind about Nevada's water allotment from the River. That was and is ruled by the Federal government.
I have to admit KillerB that I am a bit surprised about your stance regarding Mr. Rhodes rights as a private property owner to build on HIS land. It is strange seeing you defend any government agency or other private party have the right to tell a man what he can do with his own property.
So rather then spend 15 billion dollars to build a pipeline from northern Nevada to pump water into Las Vegas. Why not build a desalination plant in California and they in turn can give us their water rights from the Colorado river to us.It can't cost 15 billion dollars to build a desalination plant.Also we reduce the risk of northern Nevada becoming a desert like us.
"I have to admit KillerB that I am a bit surprised about your stance regarding Mr. Rhodes rights as a private property owner to build on HIS land. It is strange seeing you defend any government agency or other private party have the right to tell a man what he can do with his own property."
vegaslee -- but Rhodes isn't exercising strictly private rights, is he? It's a commercial enterprise since he plans to 1) sell it to others and 2) use public resources. It's not like he wants to build a house and hook into the local utilities for his own use. See below.
"Why not build a desalination plant in California and they in turn can give us their water rights from the Colorado river to us."
samspeaks -- I hear an echo in here.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)
1. Killer has it right -- the Colorado River Compact governs until it is amended.
2. Amending the Colorado River Compact will NOT be an easy task.
3. The Colorado is an uncertain source -- just compare last year's flow with this year's.
4. For water to get here from desalinization plants on the Pacific coast, takes pumping it over at least two 4,000 foot passes. That will be expensive -- even if we could count on solar power all the way (and ignored the capital cost of installing the solar generating capacity.)
Economically, the better solution would be to put the desal plants on the Gulf of California because (a) the water would start at a higher temperature making distillation more cost effective than on the Pacific Coast {and modern distillation technology would be much cheaper than reverse osmosis); and (b) the geography between the Gulf and Las Vegas would require less pumping, leading to lower total delivered cost of the water -- no matter what purification technology was used.
The New Oil
Oct 8, 2010
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/20...
Should private companies control our most precious natural resource?
...and there are two water parks under construction,what a joke!!
John Tominsky; It wouldn't be a bad idea to have a former Navy engineer who ran the ship's operation of on board water supplies to head up the Las Vegas Valley Water District. No one, and I mean no one, would be more qualified to proficiently handle our water resources here more than one of those Navy engineers.
You Navy guys did an absolutely wonderful job. As a former United States Marine, I was deployed a great amount of my time on U.S. Navy warships and troop carriers from the Mediterranean / Middle East to the Far East. There were times that we were deployed in hotspots for such long periods where I wondered how we could possibly have any fresh water remaining on board at all. But, we were always well taken care of by you Navy guys. My appreciation and thanks are endless to each one of you. For, you Navy guys made our lives bearable when we were all faced, sometimes daily, with horrific and unbearable situations.
Each one of you sailors of the United States Navy will always have a special place in my heart. I was always proud to be a United States Marine. But, I was even more proud that my title of "Marine" was under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Navy. Gentleman, "Semper Fi"!
Brad,
At the risk of going seriously off-topic, I want to add this.
Even though the Marines and Navy might feud like the Hatfields and McCoys, I will always remember how we had each others backs when other groups were a threat to either of us. The Marines will always be family to me.
Semper Fi, Marine!
Brad's comment about having a someone from the Navy run a desal plant reminded me of this: there is very little difference, if any, between a shipboard evaporator and a still. :)
"Boftx"; It's strange, where John wrote the following in his letter to the editor, "The engineering department would take in sea water and turn it into fresh water. I would drink it out of the water fountain, make it into coffee, which we were never without, and the cooks used it in their cooking. I lived on that purified sea water for years. I am 78 years old and still alive."
I remember Marines stationed back at Camp Lejeune felt they were safe when they didn't have to deploy overseas on ship. Strange how their drinking water at the base was poisoned with rocket fuel and our water on ship was as pure as spring water. I love you sailors, you all did it the right way, and like you said, you all had our backs in many, many ways.
"Boftx", by the way, (laughing), even if there was a bit of "hooch" mixed in our shipboard water I wouldn't have said anything. Your secret is safe with me. However, (LOL) I would eliminate that practice when it comes to the water supply of the Las Vegas valley. Hmm, may be some would dispute me on that premise!!!
John, The SNWA has estimated cost and power many times. The cost is phenomenal and so is the power.
The quote from Pat Mulroy said the "back of napkin estimate" for the power costs alone comes to about $400 million a year, because the desalted water would have to be pumped uphill across hundreds of miles of mountains and desert."
The estimate of costs was:
"Several years ago, the authority ran cost estimates for a 100,000-acre-foot desalination plant, associated power facility and pipeline to bring purified seawater from the coast to Southern Nevada."
"The price tag came to $8.4 billion, more than 212 times the $3.2 billion estimate the authority developed for its in-state groundwater project using the same set of assumptions. And that does not include permitting or operational costs."
It's much less expensive to buy the Colorado River water from California and suck it out of the lake right here. Try that.
We could solve our water problems overnight if we all got together and bought a 10% ownership position in SNWA and donated it to Harry Reid. Maybe then he would take a real interest in Lake Mead and use his political power to tell California where to get off.
True, VegasLee, "Star, I would think as a teacher you would know better then most that the SNWA had and has no authority of any kind about Nevada's water allotment from the River. That was and is ruled by the Federal government."
SNWA "has no authority...about Nevada's water allotment from the River," but it does have INFLUENCE! And lately, a person just has to wonder WHO their alliances are with as a "public utility" responsible for supplying Southern Nevada's scarce water supply.
With SNWA's latest endorsement of planting MORE lawns (which increases demand for water), and the arrogance of the Clark County Planning Commission entertaining a massive housing project in the Red Rock area by construction, project developer Dean Rhodes,it makes one wonder.
Who is listening to the citizen here?
Blessings and Peace,
Star
There is enough water going into the gulf of Mexico from the Missippippi
river to supply all the water the dry American southwest could ever use!
West Texas is enjoying another drought so a pipe could/should have
support from Texas to California and every state between.
If you have driven around rural Nevada you will have notices millions of
acres of flat land the could have unlimited potential and most of this
land is owned by all Americans so a pipeline wouldn't be held ransom by
few private interests.
Right now America has billions of dollars worth of construction equiptment
setting idle and thousands of experienced construction workers who need
a job.
If our politicians can back a train to nowhere [LV to Victorville] that will benefit
very few people they should be able to back a project that would eventually
benefit millions of Americans.