Bone Dry

In April 2001 I wrote an article about the dwindling supply of water in the Great American Desert. The focus of the article was the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, a desert fantasy oasis of bright lights, limitless possibilities, and an abundance of water. Vegas is truly in the middle of the desert. Drive a few miles beyond the edges of it's sprawl and the air suddenly goes skin-wrinkling dry, no longer sprinkled with the water of a thousand fountains. Drive a few more miles and you come upon Hoover Dam, which stands astride the Colorado River.

The Colorado is the primary source of water for Las Vegas, and the city has now reached the limits of Nevada's allotment. Officials at the city and state level have known for years this day would come, and they have been preparing. All of the outdoor fountains in Las Vegas have been turned off, and the rest of the city is under strict rationing.

Just kidding.

Las Vegas, instead of generating and enforcing strict regulations on the use of precious water, has gone hunting for more to satisfy it's insatiable demand. It proposes to pump water out of the ground in Nevada and western Utah and transport it via pipeline more than 500 miles to Las Vegas. The local people living above that water, which nurtures their crops and keeps their patch of desert from completely blowing away, are protesting.

It will do no good. There is too much money at stake, too much political pressure being applied to stop this. The Bureau Of Land Management and US Geological Survey will likely confirm Vegas' contention that there is more than enough water for the city to suck 25,000 acre-feet (enough water to cover that acreage to a depth of one foot) per year out of the ground. And in a few years, when Vegas continues to expand and it's appetite for water grows sharper, it will reach out further, deeper, to slake it's thirst. Eventually, it will suck all the remaining water out of the western United States, dry up, wither and blow away.

And there will be no water left, not a drop.