Vegas water plan gives critics déjà vu (Owens Valley)

[NVMojo]

BAKER, Nev. - Greg James knows a little bit about the politics of water. And he says he has heard this pitch before:
Officials from a large, well-financed and hugely influential government agency propose a massive water project in a sparsely populated desert valley. They promise to be good neighbors while taking only what they need to quench the thirst of their rapidly growing urban population. And they warn, in the most dire terms, that a water crisis looms if their plan isn't implemented.
That represents the guts of the case being made by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to tap groundwater resources in eastern Nevada's arid valleys - including some that sit underneath Utah's west desert - and ship it 200 miles south to Las Vegas via a pipeline network.
But James, an attorney from eastern California's Owens Valley, and the former water department director for Inyo County, warned area residents and visiting legislators here last week to be skeptical of such claims.

more...

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_4284742?source=email

[NOLADEM]

1. Vegas' Growth is Unsustainable

Building a huge city in the desert is a terrible idea.

One thing we don't have to worry about here in New Orleans is too litle water.

I feel bad for folks that live in Phoenix and Vegas. As global warming progresses, these cities will become ghost towns as water crises magnify.

In the meantime, they will drink their neighbors dry.

I hope this plan fails. Vegas should be forced to limit growth and conserve. They have no business continuing to grow as the fastest growing metro area in the country. It is unsustainable without ENORMOUS cost to the environment.

[NVMojo]

2. I appreciate your views and agree & this water war is going to get ugly

[fed-up]

3. Read "Cadillac Desert" to learn how the Owens Valley got screwed nt

[NNadir]

4. Or, for a more dramatic spin, watch the movie "Chinatown."

While set in the wrong era, the basic idea for the great film was the life of Mulholland, who, after pillaging the Owens Valley and squeezing it dry, then built the St. Francis dam.

Somewhere around 500 people died when that dam collapsed. Say this for Mulholland: Unlike a modern robber Baron - a Cheney or Bush type - Mulholland at least accepted responsibility for the disaster.

[XemaSab]

6. I have had many an ironic chuckle

at the Mulholland fountain in Griffeth Park, Los Angeles.

[Oerdin]

8. I 've been there.

When I was still in college studying to be a geologist one of our field trips was to the old St. Francis dam sight. The dam was cut by a fault line running right through the middle of it. As the reservoir filled water began to perculate along the inactive fault, under the dam, and out the other side. This flow of water is what undermined the dam and caused it to fail.

[NVMojo]

5. Thanks, I've read the book and watched "Chinatown" only LV grab is

going to be more devastating to more places.

[Sequoia]

7. Oh, yes, that's a classic.

I read it years ago and still is one of my favorite. And China Town!! Ya hoo!

[hunter]

9. You are the engineer of a train, and a bridge ahead has been washed out...

Do you:

(a) put on the brakes and pray you stop in time

-or-

(b) increase your speed, and pray you fly into another time or dimension like they did in Back to the Future or Buckaroo Bonzai?

[Eugene]

10. Gov't Drops Protests to Vegas Water Plan (AP)

Gov't Drops Protests to Vegas Water Plan

By BRENDAN RILEY, Associated Press Writer

Monday, September 11, 2006

(09-11) 19:46 PDT Carson City, Nev. (AP) --

Four federal agencies dropped their protests to a plan to pipe water
to booming Las Vegas from a valley near the Nevada-Utah line, the state
water engineer said Monday.

The National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian
Affairs and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached an agreement with the
Southern Nevada Water Authority, which manages water for Las Vegas.
It calls for monitoring to prevent over-pumping that could hurt federal
interests.

The agreement was a key element in the city's attempt to get state
approval for a $2 billion plan to draw water from several sources in rural
Nevada to supply almost 600,000 households a year.

-snip-

Utah officials, ranchers, conservationists and even the Mormon Church
continue to object to Las Vegas' request to pump water from their areas
and opponents criticized the agencies for dropping their protests.

-snip-

Full article: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/09/11/national/a194610D20.DTL

[kestrel91316]

12. Yeah, right..................

"It calls for monitoring to prevent over-pumping that could hurt federal interests."

Sounds like they don't give a damn about local interests. That's MY FAMILY'S water you're stealing, assholes. Bakers, Robisons, Rowlands, Hesselgessers, Eldridges.............them's MY PEOPLE you're going to hurt!!!!!!!!

[kestrel91316]

11. OMG OMG OMG You PIGS in Vegas keep your goddam mitts OFF

Snake Valley and Spring Valley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am about as close to hysterical over this as you will ever see me. My great-grandfather was one of the original ranchers in Snake Valley in about 1880. He homesteaded there, and raised my grandfather and his brothers and sister there, and then my grandfather raised my dad and his five brothers there. the Snake Valley is my ancestral home. It doesn't get more remote than that.

Daddy went to 1st thru 8th grade at Baker School, which has not one, but TWO rooms. My uncles and their cousins, being tall, WERE the basketball team back when they had a high school there. Baker is my most favorite place to visit in the whole world, and most of my ancestors on my dad's side are buried right there in Garrison Cemetery (the rest being an hour away in Ely).

My dad was raised during the Depression on a ranch 6 miles north of Baker. I have spent SO many unforgettable vacations and hunting trips there........my uncle Shirley, a state brand inspector profiled in the New Yorker magazine some years ago, WARNED ME about this water grab by Vegas years ago, and I didn't take it seriously. They will absolutely destroy the community there, and it is tiny and barely hangs on as it is. But this is truly gorgeous country and those city people just need to learn a little restraint and dispense with the idea of STEALING OTHER PEOPLE'S WATER AND LIVELIHOODS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAACCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am ready to spit nails!!!!!!!

My great-uncle Burt owned a TRULY ENORMOUS ranch in Spring Valley, which is blessed with far more water than the pitiful Snake Valley (I even think he died on the road there after hitting a cow - perhaps his own - at high speed in his cadillac at the ripe old age of 80-something). It makes me ill to think of all that beautiful land being ruined so even the deer have no grass or water to live on........sick, sick, sick.

Greedy Vegas people who couldn't conserve to save their lives..........when they have water restrictions enough to make people SCREAM then maybe then we can talk about sharing. But you just go to Vegas and look at all the fountains and water waste and suburban homes with grass, for crying out loud. Time to STOP BUILDING DEVELOPMENTS in the desert where there ISN'T ENOUGH WATER, dumbshits!!!!!!!!!

I need to go have a stiff drink. I hate these people.