Officials say Southwest growth straining water supplies

[NVMojo]

SAN DIEGO -- Explosive population growth in the desert Southwest is straining water supplies to their limits, officials said Thursday at a meeting of water agencies here.

"If there is a resource limitation on the growth of the American West, it really is water," said Grady Grammage, an Arizona lawyer, real estate developer and adjunct professor of law at Arizona State University. "It is not land."

Grammage suggested two changes to the way that communities in the West do business. One would be that water agencies get more involved in the zoning and land use process. The other change would be that communities set "population horizons" for how many people could be absorbed in an area.

Such proposals have come forward in Southern Nevada but have been resisted by agencies including the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Water Authority officials have said zoning decisions should be made by elements of local government, and population by the market.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2005/aug/26/519262757.html

[Missy M]

1. You don't have to be a genius to know that there is limited water..

in desert areas. Are they just finding this out.

[phantom power]

3. People have an unhealthy faith in the reservoir system.

Also, if you even begin to make a suggestion like the above, the local Club For Growth will descend upon your house with an army of Republican pit-bulls and rend the very flesh from your bones.

Gammage had better watch his back. I bet they're loading the pit-bulls into the van as we speak.

[htuttle]

2. In case it's not clear to everyone...

...it's really dumb to move millions of people out into the desert at a time when energy and water supplies are going to get wobbly.

[phantom power]

4. Didn't you hear? Human technology always prevails!

I'm getting a queasy feeling in my stomache... :puke:

[htuttle]

6. How many days do you suppose Las Vegas or Phoenix...

...could go without electricity?

I'm thinking 4 or 5 days tops without serious outside relief efforts.

[phantom power]

11. In the summer? Yeah, maybe a week.

It's an interesting question. In theory, most people could survive the heat, but I doubt much work would be getting done. And then there's the lack of refrigeration.

I doubt any modern city could survive more than a few days without electricity. Too much critical infrastructure requires it. Food storage, water supply, traffic lights, hospitals, etc.

[phantom power]

12. Another way to look at it: it'd be a lot like.... Iraq.

[htuttle]

13. It would be worse in some ways

At least Baghdad has rivers running through it and a water table.

Las Vegas doesn't even have that, unless you include the reflecting pools outside the casinos.

on edit:

Or to put it another way, Baghdad has been a city for thousands of years, long before electricity. However, there were never several million Paiutes living in Las Vegas.

[Goldeneye]

5. Las Vegas is betting that the water is endless

With their explosive growth it will take more than luck.

[NVMojo]

7. which is why they had Senator Reid and Congressman Gibbons

push through the Lincoln County Land Bill to allow a Wilderness Study Area to have a utility corridor to drain water from rural counties down to Las Vegas.

[castiron]

8. haven't ya heard? de-salination is gonna make filling

every square fucking inch on earth with a Christian family and a pool a reality! Seriously, on NPR today was news that El Paso has plans for a huge de-sal to make possible influx of military in the next decades.

[IDemo]

9. Here is a fifteen-year old news item relevant to the topic:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A//thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z%3Fr101%3AE03AU0-B365%3A&ei=Ua4PQ_b8Ls30abe33bwK

Certain individuals on the LA County Board of Supervisors thought that the construction of canals/pipelines/aquaducts to send 'under-utilized' water from the Snake and Columbia Rivers to SoCal would find favor.

Didn't happen, and for good reason(s). The water is not at all 'under-utilized', and the construction of such a system would be wildly expensive.

Still, expect regional competition for water resources to heat up greatly in the near future.

[nosmokes]

10. not only the people, but then everybody and their dog

wants a nice green lawn and how many golf courses do you really need? and grass in the desert is an ecological nightmare, the water waste and herbicide usage being just the beginning.

[Nihil]

14. Strikes me (and no doubt many others) ...

... that a few well-placed bombs could really f*ck up a lot of people
in a hurry ... far more effective than using them directly against a
shopping mall or hotel or whatever ... Vegas could then join the list
of other desert cities abandoned by people throughout history ...

[phantom power]

15. Yep, we'd be completely and immediately fucked.

I've been meaning to figure out how many millions of people depend on reservoirs in the southwest. It's got to be tens of millions.