Looks Like There's Plenty of Water in Las Vegas
Presidential candidate Bill Richardson made waves a while ago by suggesting that Wisconsin export Great Lakes water to Nevada.
He was in Nevada when he made his remarks.
Looks like Las Vegas has plenty of water already: maybe it's just a matter of how it uses it?
5 comments:
I hope you were being funny with that.
You said in a previous response to a post I made that the great lakes services 40 million people, that is around 14% of the U.S. population, granted I am not sure if you included Canada in your 40 million or not. With all of the water that the great lakes has, 40 million does not seem like much. By the way, plenty of people around the great lakes waste water also. Plus, I am sure that the water in that video is recycled through a pump. So very little new water is being used.
The double standard I see is that we for the most part did not choose where we were born, people who were born near the great lakes have a plentyful supply of water, but those who were born in the southwest do not. Why is is fair that those near the great lakes should have most of the water and those that do not should not? Maybe the people who live near the great lakes should have their water rationed so the people in the Southwest can have more of it? Wouldnt this be for the common good? This is the same logic liberals apply to everything else. You do not see the double standard because (no offense) you are a liberal.
First of all, there is no double standard. We, as in Midwestern dwellers, live in a location that is suitable for supporting life with regards to water availability. Vegas, however, is a desert that is incapable of supporting the types of lifestyles that people desire. By this, I mean that the amount of water allocated to Las Vegas via the Law of the River Compact is sufficient enough to support a desert lifestyle. Right now, the city of Las Vegas and its surrounding area has enough water to maintain itself. The water that they are looking to bring into the city would go strictly towards fueling continued excessive growth. Now you may disagree with me here but I do not believe that I hold a double standard by living sustainably in my water abundant area while others are looking to continue to be the fastest growing city in the United States.
Now, if they do feel the need to continue there impossibly high growth rate, then there are a number of ways to do it besides looking toward their own rural areas for the solution (trust me, the Great Lakes are not a realistic option to any of the major players out there. A desal agreement with Cali, though not a first choice, would be reached far before a water importation agreement with us would be). Other desert cities, such as Tucson or Albuquerque, have instituted progressive block rate plans that deter exorbitant uses of water. This is much more sensible and practical than LV looking for others to bail them out of what is hardly as big of a crisis as they claim.
Finally, you are right about the hotels/resorts. Most of their water is gray water. It is also important to note that the resorts are actually a moot point since most of them have their own wells in the desert and therefore do not figure into the usage data for SNWA/LVVWD. Golf courses, however, are not recycling their water and believe me there are way too many of them for a desert location. A better picture to have posted than the video would have been the Lake Las Vegas area. Its complete absurdity.
Oil is very important to the modern world wide economy, too. I think states and nations that are fortunate enough to have an abundance of oil share with the rest of the world, for the greater good of all.
Either that, or charge Vegas $250 per gallon--and they pay shipping and purification expenses.
John P, here's the thing: It's not going to happen. Get digging now, and go deep out there in the desert, because you will find water faster that way. We are not giving up the Great Lakes -- not from selfishness, but for the "common good." There's this thing called the ecosystem. Mess with it, and soon, we will look like the desert, too. And we means not just those of us along the lakes but much farther. The Great Lakes comprise as much water as an ocean, so would you drain the Atlantic and not expect an impact beyond its coast?
(Of course, drain the Atlantic, and its current coast won't be the coast anymore. Do look up what is happening already to shorelines here before you write on this again. And also look at what happens to our water used here -- it goes back to the Great Lakes. That's what much of this blog is about, the battle to keep it from leaving our watershed. And you are far, far from our watershed. . . .)
And about logic: Your qualifier "for the most part" on birthplace is unnecessary -- unless you can cite just who chose where to be born? That is, in the last
2007 years.
Controversial ... common sense ... I think we all need to start looking at these real issues with a new perspective. Does it make sense to live in an inhospitable environment? Does it make sense to run air conditioning or heat year-round rather than just deal with the temperature God gave us today? There are issues on the personal level, choices we make, but there are also larger issues made by developers, governments, etc., that need to be thought through from a sustainability point of view rather than the Almighty Dollar all the time. WHY must they build areas with no safe walkways from store to store such that if you want to survive you must DRIVE rather than walk 200 feet to the next store?
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