Las Vegas Sun

I feel that we Las Vegas is being fed propaganda regarding actual water usage and the causes of the Lake's declining water levels. The article tries to tie the growth of Las Vegas with the Lakes decline. This is incorrect, and Las Vegas water usage shows that the City is actually much more efficient in water usage compared to ten or twenty years ago despite our rapidly growing city. So this attempt to tie our rapid growth and the Lakes water level is false. Secondly, although Las Vegas does rely on 90% of its water supply from the Lake, the majority of the water is sent downstream to other states such as Arizona and California for Agricultural uses. So in reality, Las Vegas probably uses less than 10% of the Colorado's flow.

The Lake is continuing to decline because it is a man made lake, that is tied to a massive hydro powerplant. Again, the majority of this power is sent elsewhere for their power needs. Our nations power consumption has grown, so the hydro plant must continue to be fed massive flows of water despite it using more water and is actually replenishing the dam. So in reality, if Las Vegas and its more efficient water usage was taken into consideration, the Lake might have kept its current levels if we didn't have to keep the gates open to run the power plants.

The normal twenty and thrity year weather patterns are probably the second significant cause for the Lakes decline. If you examine past Lake levels, one can clearly see that Lake levels have receded and expanded due to snow fall in the mountains when Las Vegas was still a very small town, and the other major cities like Phoenix were still minor as well. Any kid that grew up close to a river or creek can tell you that sometimes, creeks just dry up sometimes when there isn't enough snow melt or rain.

So please, quit trying to feed this line that our cities growth has contributed to the lakes decline. The reality is this, Lake levels fall and rise depending on weather patterns that have been established on this continent for thousands of years. Should the govt have planned better and anticipated diminishing snow melt in the mountains, and planned to cut back on power generated by the dam and restrict water usage downstream by the farmers?, probably yes but this would have required real discussion and agreement with politicians across state lines. This would have never happened. Instead, we have to read articles like this trying to spell doom and gloom of Las Vegas. Only when you stop talking about left leaning hype that only is meant to promote some GREEN initiative can you really address falling lake levels if that is really what really want to do as a collective society. I support conservation, but not at the cost of reality and the truth.