Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plan to pump water from rural areas is a boondoggle
The Southern Nevada Water Authority is serious about its $15 billion boondoggle — draining the groundwater from eastern Nevada and western Utah and piping it to Southern Nevada to supply water to 170,000 homes until the water runs out. Yes, boys and girls, water authority officials are serious. They are holding hearings as we speak. Are we going to allow this fiasco to happen?
They propose to pump and pipe water more than 300 miles, but this will last only until the groundwater is used up. Look at what has happened before. Los Angeles had a similar plan and it went kablooey. This has been attempted all over the globe with disastrous results.
Asking water users to finance a $15 billion pipeline as a temporary fix is, at best, ridiculous. There are some people who are going to get even richer if this goes through, but it won’t be the ranchers and farmers who depend on that water for their survival.
When I moved to Southern Nevada in 1988, the Army Corps of Engineers was proposing to divert Columbia River water into the Colorado River. What happened to that idea? I will tell you. The people who were busy buying up water rights and easements were not much interested in any permanent solutions. They were only looking to make a killing with their investments.
