This is to Mr. Lawrence and the population of the desert southwest:
This is in response to: Startling Water Predictions Spark Huge Response
I don’t live in Nevada, I reside in Austin, TX; however I felt a I needed to comment on this, because sooner or later this is going to be declared a federal disaster “zone”, and when that happens, it’s going to be my tax dollars paying for what ever solution that the army corps of engineers has cooked up. For the current and future residents of Las Vegas and the southwest wanting to move to a “desert”, does anyone remember what the word desert means? According to Webster Merriam Online the word desert means:
So armed with these definitions, we also know that life needs water to live. We know that you get an average of 10 inches or less, with less being the norm. With the water resources that are currently available to Southern Nevada right now, it is insufficient for the rapid population growth running amok. It is a matter of common sense based on the facts of that Southern Nevada will not be able to secure sustainable water resources needed for future growth. What happens to Arizona, the rest of Nevada, Palm Springs, New Mexico, and Utah, which will eventually run into this issue as well? Some of these states will run into this issue faster than others. However system that is going to relieve the stress on Lake Mead is going to pump ground water to the affected part of the state. I believe this course of action to be short sighted and an ill advised plan similar to levee system of New Orleans. This is putting the needs of developers ahead of the population, which is not the fault of the developers, but the fault of the government, which is there to protect the people, and make the tough responsible decisions for the people in the best interests of people. However the reason that these decisions have to be made now is because someone else didn’t want to make them when the facts first started to present this problem. It is so much more convenient to stick your head in the sand and hope that it will just blow over, and let someone else deal with it, instead of facing the facts. The reason that Las Vegas is here is because of the Great Depression, which gave us the era of massive public works projects, Hoover Dam, so that we could put the unemployed to work. This was a noble and great idea at the time. Times change, I’m not insinuating that anyone could have predicted this. I’m not completely blaming global warming, which I’m sure has something to do with this; it’s more to do with uncontrolled population growth than anything else. This is not a natural city, it is like New Orleans. At least the majority of New Orleans North of I-10, where the marsh lands where drained and the levees placed in there stead with homes built on the marsh lands. It is there at the pleasure of man because man wanted to conquer and feel in control over nature. Our arrogance, in that we can control anything through engineering, technology and money, is so completely misplaced. I believe this to be the result of government, selling us on ideas that are unsustainable.
My solution would be to place population control measures in place and/or let the system balance itself out naturally. Which it will naturally, after all it is a desert. Piping the water in will eventual lower the water table for that aquifer, and then what? This is just put a band-aid, to buy some time and not change a damn thing while the government and businesses do a rain dance and pass the buck. As with everything else, the thinking goes, it’s not my problem.
-Mike
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