The need to reduce water consumption

By Tom Keller, Henderson

Saturday, June 28, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

According to Monday’s story “Arizona could face cutbacks in water from Colorado River,” Phoenix and Tucson will soon face water supply shortages if the draw from Lake Mead continues to significantly exceed the amount of water flowing into it. But the problem extends to all users of Colorado River water, not just these two cities.

Las Vegans are already paying to build a billion-dollar third water intake. But it will only sustain the overdraw for a couple of years until the level drops to the new intake.

The lake is emptying, and staving off emergency rationing will require major consumption cuts.

It’s time to raise the price of water to all consumers enough to bring supply and demand in balance.

In particular, there is a lot of marginal desert farming such as cotton and alfalfa that consumes huge amounts of water for very little value.