Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumBLM Will Drain 150,000 Acre-feet/Yr From Great Basin N.P. Aquifers To Prop Up Las Vegas
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Life in the Great Basins valleys, human and otherwise, depends on shallow groundwater, springs, and creeks, which in turn depend on groundwater flows from rain and snow in mountain ranges. 200,000 acre-feet is about 65 billion gallons of water, equivalent to the average flow of Nevadas Humboldt River. SNWA claims that it can pump this water from the Spring, Delamar, Dry Lake, and Cave Valleys without harm; though its clear to those who live in the Great Basin that if most of the water flowing in from the mountains is drawn away, eventually most everything in the valleys will die.
The Bureau of Land Managements final decision on the right-of-way for the project [3] allows for the pumping of 150,000 annual acre-feet. [4] A drawdown projection commissioned by the Goshute Tribe [5] (and other analyses) reflect a far more destructive outcome than the SNWA claims. Access to Snake Valley (much of which is in Utah) groundwater is still in dispute, but the US Geological Survey has concluded the multiple valleys aquifers are connected, so its likely that Utahs groundwater would be impacted anyway. [6]
According to the Great Basin Water Network, Independent hydrologists dispute it is possible to pump and export so much water without causing major environmental degradation and destroying the livelihoods of rural residents in eastern Nevada and western Utah. The area targeted for the massive pumping proposal is home to National Wildlife Refuges
Great Basin National Park is surrounded by the proposed groundwater pump and export project. The proposed pumping scheme would bring two hundred or more wells with power lines, roads, and linked buried pipelines to cover the valleys on both sides of the National Parksome right on the border of the park.
Communities like Baker, Nevada on the Utah border would have large production wells in their backyard sending local water to a city 300 miles away. [7] As pipeline foe Rick Spilsbury puts it, This would mean the end of any economic development anywhere near the drained areas. The likely result would be a mass emigration and the eventual transformation of the area into a national toxic dump site. Impacts to land, water, and air could extend as far as Salt Lake City and its surrounding urban areas (which already have some of the worst air pollution in the US). Physicians for Social Responsibility predicts a dewatered basin-and-range country could increase downwind particulate pollution from dust storms, including the toxic mineral erionite. [8] In textbook fashion, the city of Las Vegas is exporting suffering and violence to import resources that it cannot acquire in its immediate landbase.
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http://dgrnewsservice.org/2013/06/17/groundwater-pipeline-threatens-great-basin-desert-indigenous-groups/
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)born and raised in Baker, and my family has ranched there since the 1880s. My favorite uncle was one of those ranchers fighting the good fight against the Vegas water grabbers.
This is a giant environmental crime in the making - another Owens Valley, but this time they will destroy the springs in a National Park.
Don't get me started. I'll never stop.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)environmental disaster in the making. Until some place like this makes these wrong headed decisions to try to maintain an impossible lifestyle and fail most of the country will continue to believe that we do not have to change our lifestyle. We do not listen to the canaries anymore.
Can't we move Las Vegas to Detroit or something?
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Recently I was in Western Washington and made the observation that all of these wine developers and farmers who existed on irrigation water from Grand Coulee Dam had an irrational hatred of the Federal Government even though they benefited from it.
The response stunned me. They aren't using water from Grand Coulee Dam, that would be too expensive. Instead they are draining, albeit slowly, the aquifers and using 'ancient water' (i.e. water tables that were developed 30,000 years ago).
Here is but one example of how a liberal land grant University is using ancient water to provide water for its golf course.
http://waterplanetnews.blogspot.com/2012/09/washington-state-university-and-threat.html
If you are interested in this subject then you will find the website very interesting.