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Vegas: The Shape of Things to Come in the West
April 11, 2007 4:30 PM
If there's one defining characteristic of the American West, its aridity, dryness of climate. The continuing challenge of dealing with aridity is a big theme at this year's State of the Rockies conference at Colorado College. And perhaps no city in the Rocky Mountain West faces greater challenges in meeting its water needs than Las Vegas. It may be just down the road from Lake Mead, but it doesn't have the rights to use much of the water in that reservoir, so its had to be very creative about acquiring it from elsewhere.
To hear the four minute report aired on KRCC click below:
[ LISTEN ]
To hear all of Kay Brother's speech click below:
[ LISTEN ]
BROTHERS : Anything from bringing water down in ships from Alaska,
anything, its tried to look at.
WHITNEY : Kay Brothers has a lot to do with keeping the taps flowing
in the Las Vegas valley. She's the deputy manager of the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. That agency is trying to keep up with ten
percent annual population growth in one of the driest places in
the West. Many look to Vegas as a model for how other western cities
can meet their needs as populations continue to grow, while at the
same time climate change looks to be reducing the overall amount of
water available in our region.
BROTHERS : We have a train coming at us if people continue to move to
the West as they are.
WHITNEY : Brothers was the State of the Rockies keynote speaker Monday
night. She said Las Vegas didn't really start making progress in
augmenting its water supply until the various cities, counties and
other government entities in the Las Vegas Valley stopped competing
for water and started cooperating. In the late 1980s they held a big
conference to try and work out solutions.
BROTHERS : You can imagine, everybody brought their attorney. Well,
the attorneys could come, they were welcome, but they had to sit
along the wall and shut up.
WHITNEY : Once the governments in the Las Vegas area got together,
they could start negotiating as a team with other states in the
Colorado River basin. Due to an agreement drawn up in the early
1900s, Nevada gets far less water from the Colorado than other states
in the basin, and Vegas has had to be very creative about accessing
every drop it has a right to.
BROTHERS : Its very interesting being a water manager in the West.
And I think flexibility and planning, and trying to work together to
meet these needs, is going to be the way of the West.If we continue to allow everyone moving here, and not just in Las Vegas in all the Western cities, if we continue to do that we hav a lot of working together to do and a lot of
conservation and a lot of flexibility that we have to put in.
WHITNEY : After marveling at how creative and collaborative Las Vegas
has been in finding water where there appears to be none, someone in
the audience asked Brothers if, eventually, the city, and by
extension the West, will hit a wall, when simply no more water is
available.
BROTHERS : Isnt there going to be a day of reckoning? That's probably
true. If people continue to move here, you can be efficient, you can trade water, you can share water, you can take it and bank it, and all that but, there will be a day, especially if climate change is, well we know it's true but how quickly it changes and whatever, there's going to be a day of reckoning so we better start looking now at long term augmentation if we're still going to allow the West to grow.
WHITNEY :The long-term augmentation Las Vegas is looking at includes
pulling seawater from the Pacific ocean and running it through a huge
de-salting plant that will consume prodigious amounts of energy.
That's after it completes a $2 billion pipeline to bring water 200
miles south from northern Nevada. An old joke says that in the West
water flows uphill towards money, Vegas isnt running short of that
commodity, but Brothers says water users there might one day see an
additional charge on their water bills to pay for the energy to de-
salt their water and pump it across great distances.
Posted by Eric Whitney on April 11, 2007 4:30 PM | Permalink
