User profile: timsaelens

Joined: June 22, 2008

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Posted on: Lake’s ghost town seen as a warning

The decline of water in Lake Mead is clearly tied to populations in Las Vegas and everywhere else in the region that relies on Colorado river water, including our home in southern California. I have vacationed on the lake for the past forty years and watched levels rise and fall over that time. But recently, the water level has dropped as low a I have ever seen it.

However, that does not imply that there is a shortage of water. The amount of water on the planet has remained the same since H2O formed nearly two billion years ago. The shortage we're experiencing is the political will that is needed to develop new sources of drinkable water for the region. Conservation is the only acceptable political solution that our leaders are willing to call for. It allows them to evade the question without having to make any controversial decisions. Avoiding decisions and doing nothing is the cornerstone of any elected officials career.

In truth, building more dams, building more aqueducts, reclaiming waste water for landscaping, and desalination are the only solutions that will enable populations to continue living in the southwest. Unfortunately, those efforts are considered sins by those who now aspire to the new religion that is environmentalism. The only environmental solution allowed is conservation, which will never work in a growing population. The other environmental solution is population control, which enviros are not quit bold enough to call for yet but their trying to work up the courage. Even this article vaguely alludes to it.

I'm certain that over time real solutions will come to pass and all of us will survive. We just need to experience more pain, in the form of shortages and price increases. When things get bad enough, the spoiled American people will see the handwriting on the wall and demand real solutions from our elected officials. Spoiled Americans, and I include myself as one of them, are not going to allow the enviros to force us back to the stone age.

(Suggest removal) 6/22/08 at 10:41 a.m.

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