Our own Hurricane Katrina

It's not that we haven't had enough urgent warnings. In June, congressional testimony predicted that our current rate of water consumption could drain Lake Mead in 10 years. On July 17, a UCLA professor's article on the Review Journal's op-ed page discussed the characteristics of a possible "perfect drought" lasting for decades or even centuries.

My awareness of the water crisis was reinforced by my constituents, who identified water supply as a top concern in response to my 2006 poll and in my front door conversations with them during the past campaign.

This crisis needs to be addressed now. We cannot afford to wait any longer in hopes that water from Northern Nevada may be granted to us and that a multibillion-dollar pipeline may somehow materialize before we run out of water.

We can, at no cost, reduce our water use enough to provide time to find socially and environmentally acceptable long-term solutions.

The first priority is to immediately adopt aggressive conservation pricing of water, which will send a strong conservation signal to high-volume users. These new rates should be in place this fall and would immediately start to reduce excess consumption as tens of thousands of water customers react to the new prices by cutting excessive use.

Other desert cities have employed aggressive conservation pricing for years and have achieved lower levels of water waste. They typically charge low prices for the amount of water needed for an average water-conserving home -- usually $1 to $2 per 1,000 gallons. The price increases with the volume consumed, up to as much as $9 or $10 per 1,000 gallons at extremely high use levels. In Las Vegas, water never costs much above $3 per 1,000 gallons -- no matter how much a household uses or wastes.

The Nevada Legislature and the governor recognized the importance of conservation pricing this year by enacting my Assembly Bill 331, making conservation pricing an element of state water policy and requiring all Nevada water providers to report the water savings they achieve through their pricing programs.

The Southern Nevada water crisis could go critical during the next few years, requiring extreme water use restrictions and possibly building moratoria. Reliable studies show that our local economy would be seriously damaged by such immediate and extreme measures. We need to sharply cut back on excessive water consumption before these steps become necessary. Conservation pricing is the only way to do it.

Timing is essential. Just as our federal government has failed to act to combat global warming, our local governments have frittered away another year of inaction on the water crisis.

Refusal of the County Commission to call for conservation pricing last fall has put us a year closer to a severe water shortage.

This year, the local water providers are about to consider their rate structures again. I plan to ask to address the advisory committee that will recommend the decision, and will again plead with a reluctant County Commission to settle for nothing less than a serious, modern conservation pricing plan that will immediately begin to reduce our wasteful patterns of water use in this valley.

What we need are several thousand water customers calling, mailing or e-mailing their demand that the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the water providers adopt conservation pricing to save our water and our valley.

It wouldn't hurt if my 62 legislative colleagues also demanded that the water authority do what AB331 calls on them to do.

This crisis is our Hurricane Katrina. Don't let the authorities sit idly by as we descend into a devastating crisis.

It's your call. Will it be Lake Full or Landfill?

Joseph M. Hogan, a Democrat, represents District 10 in the Nevada Assembly.