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We could buy water from farmers
Sunday, Jan. 29, 2012 | 2:02 a.m.
In his Wednesday column, J. Patrick Coolican laments the fact that the bills have come due for unnecessary infrastructure investments made for future growth in the valley. Just like the housing bubble, it turned out that assuming unending growth was a foolish bet.
Now water users are going to have to pay $5 a month for infrastructure projects, mostly the new $300 million Lake Mead intake. On that basis, the water authority’s proposed $10 billion water pipeline would cost $165 a month per user.
To supply future water needs, we need to buy some of the Colorado River water now allocated for growing alfalfa and cotton in the desert. Los Angeles is already paying Imperial Valley farmers about $100 per acre-foot, or 30 cents per 1,000 gallons, for their water. There is no need to build expensive desalination plants and water pipelines or dry up northern Nevada valleys when we can just pay farmers in Arizona and California to not grow their crops.
Discussion: 8 comments so far…
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Actually, we need to tell California to jump off a cliff and keep as much water from Lake Mead as we need *before* any goes there. Even then, we should restrict how much California gets in the interest of having proper reserves for ourselves.
California has the ocean on its door step, let it find economical ways to extract fresh water from salt. SoCal is as much a desert as we are in many respects and should face the same consequences for lack of planning.
We need to stop greening up a desert that gets almost no rainfall.
Major cities should not be located in a desert.
Time to stop people from moving here
It is a better use to grow food.
Tom Keller, your solutions to our future water problems is not even close to being practical. You state, "To supply future water needs, we need to buy some of the Colorado River water now allocated for growing alfalfa and cotton in the desert. Los Angeles is already paying Imperial Valley farmers about $100 per acre-foot, or 30 cents per 1,000 gallons, for their water. We can just pay farmers in Arizona and California to not grow their crops.
Come on now!!! More senseless government spending on subsidies and couple this with expanding the foreign import of such goods?
You got to come up with a better plan than that!!!
@Boftx, there is an interstate compact, which is the law on apportionment of the water of the Colorado.
@Tom Keller, California is buying water allocated to California under the Colorado River Compact. Nevada would be buying water from farmers in Arizona and California. But the Compact allocates that water to those States. So we would have to amend the Compact, which takes the approvals of the other parties and Congress. Good luck with that.
Leric, you are correct, but that doesn't mean that the arrangement is a good one. :)
boftx; living here by the Great Lakes, i would prefer selling nevada our water, of course, at a profit. once again, too many states and a foreign country involved. i have a solution but you may not like it.
Or we could just quit insisting we need to overpopulate desert regions! Is cramming 70% of Nevada's population into one valley a smart thing to do?
There really needs to be a moritorium on GROWTH. Currently, cities have been built beyond SUSTAINABLE utility capacity. Who can we thank for this mess?
But, there is no time better than the present, for State, County, City, and Neighborhood Planning Commissions to resolve that until the water issue is effectively addressed, any further expansion/growth will be put on hold. Only utilize parcels that have prior development and strengthen what remains. Improve upon what is already here, not continue plunder virgin land indiscriminately with UNsustainable housing. The insanity must stop.
For the good of our food chain and ourselves, agriculture should be encouraged and supported. We cannot place ourselves in the hands of foreign food providers and winds of politics. Ever. Any tillable land should be in production here in the USA, for our own national security.
Ultimately, Citizens must demand that priorities are established in their favor, not cronyism and political favoritisms.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Star, what a good suggestion about encouraging agriculture. If we put desal plants on the Gulf of California and brought water up here by canal and pumps (powered by solar power as they will be in sunny desert all the way), we could not only assure our own big, steady supply of water, but also provide water to several potentially great agricultural areas that have the right climate and soil but not enough water.
There's plenty of water nation and worldwide with the technology available to purify to the highest drinking standards.
The issue is to harness, store, and transport to the places and people in need when required. All these problems are not impossible to overcome at reasonable costs and efforts once people commit to doing it.
Carmine A. DiFazio