Whoa!
I mean Whoa!
I have my share of interest in Nevada. My wife was born and raised in Carson City, I spent my junior high school and high school years in Carson City, I even lived in Las Vegas for a while as a kid, probably reached legendary status along the Vegas outskirts for being the all time greatest bare handed lizard catcher in history; I have experienced Nevada's remoteness, its beauty, its hot springs and geysers, its geologic formations, fish fossils in the middle of nowhere, ghost towns, lakes, trout streams -- I could go on and on.
We out west are no strangers to water manipulation and crisis. Never in the history of the world has more manipulation, alteration, and diversion of natural water courses been achieved than in the American west, and of course never in the history of the world has so much human population thrived in a desert climate.
My native California holds the record for the most stupendous water infrastructure achievements of all time. And California is paying dearly for these so called achievements. California's State Water Project, or Burns-Porter Act, was passed in 1960, and so the California Aquaduct was born, a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines conveying water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. A system of countless environmental catastrophes and a system of human dependence, what's done is done. And we're stuck with it as countless ecosystems suffer as the result of urban needs. Just look at this straight from the California Department of Water Resources' mouth: http://www.water.ca.gov/swp/history.cfm
So I ran across an article in the Las Vegas Sun concerning Southern Nevada's impending future. This statement coming from the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Pat Mulroy, sounded like Zeros dropping bombs on Pearl Harbor, "If we see a real downturn in the hydrology, then I'm not sure we have a choice but to begin pursuing the in-state pipeline." Ms. Mulroy is talking about a Nevada version of California's State Water Project, piping water from Northern Nevada and potentially the Snake Valley Basin in Utah all the way down to Southern Nevada, or Las Vegas, if the Colorado River basin, Las Vegas' prime water resource, happens to fail in providing adequate supply during a prolonged drought. This sounds like a declaration of war, Southern Nevada against just about everybody, including Northern Nevada, Utah, California, Arizona, and even Mexico. Go here for the article: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/dec/27/state-water-depends-colorado-river/
Ms. Mulroy's statement may be a glimpse into the real future of the West, she may be right. Wow!
Las Vegas, I mean of all the strange things going on in Vegas one of the wierdest must be how it exists in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
From an engineering perspective there is no doubt it could be done.
Who wants this? Is Las Vegas that influential? Will Harry Reid be around to pull this off?
Will Nevada repeat California's Water Wars? Check out what happened with California's Los Angeles Aquaduct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars#Los_Angeles_Aqueduct:_the_beginning_of_the_water_wars
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