LETTERS: Faraday, Apex will need water importation pipeline

Fifteen years ago, as manager of community resources for Clark County, I negotiated the Master Developer Agreement between Clark County and the Apex Industrial Park. Subsequently, I completed the land sales for the Apex Industrial Park between the Bureau of Land Management and Clark County, and then between the county and the private sector.

Then and now, the industrial park's economic development potential has been limited by its minuscule groundwater resources and the lack of a hookup to a reliable municipal water system ("Faraday plant to use limited groundwater — for now," Dec. 11 Review-Journal). While the new Faraday Future plant is a big deal, it does nothing to address this fundamental water shortage problem at Apex, as this new firm is expected to utilize the scarce remaining groundwater resources still available.

What we have is a chicken-or-the-egg situation, as government and the existing private-sector landowners are unwilling to front the costs of bringing a speculative waterline out to Apex until there is adequate demand, and until the waterline is built, it will be difficult to attract new companies to this site due to the shortage of water. My expectation is that this problem will not be fully resolved until White Pine and Lincoln counties' rural water importation pipeline is completed to Las Vegas, with one of the big beneficiaries to be the Apex property owners, as this industrial park is expected to be along that future pipeline route.

Until this occurs or a new pipeline line is run there from North Las Vegas, Apex will continue to be an attractive sandbox in the desert with great potential, but with inadequate water resources to attract new firms to this industrial area.

Douglas Bell

Las Vegas

Paris climate pact

Kudos to all of the 196 countries that met in Paris and agreed to keep Earth from warming higher than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels ("Obama calls Paris pact 'best chance' to save the planet," Dec. 13 Review-Journal). The cornerstone for reducing global warming is converting the world's power to carbon-neutral.

These countries joined with tens of thousands of American scientists in major organizations, more than 97 percent of climate scientists, most worldwide scientific organizations and even all but one of the conservative parties in the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Germany. The 54 million Republicans in the United States — or rather their elected representatives — stand alone in denying climate change. Do they really think the other 99-plus percent of the world's population is conspiring against them for personal gain or some other nefarious reason?

Of course, the trillion-dollar fossil fuel industries, which stand to lose everything, wouldn't be guilty of misleading them, right? Please!

Lynn H. Lanier

Henderson

Refugee crisis

Two short articles in Thursday's Review-Journal once again demonstrated how the Democratic leadership in Congress does not take terrorism seriously. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said his members would not back the Republicans' plan to slow the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States ("Syrian refugee measure likely to die in Congress"). His statements came the same day two suspected terrorists were arrested attempting to infiltrate a Syrian refugee center in Austria ("Attack suspects arrested in Vienna refugee center").

The two men arrested are suspected of providing help to the terrorists who murdered 130 people in the Paris attack. Further, one of the Paris attackers had posed as a Syrian refugee.

The purpose of the Republican proposal is to allow our government more time to properly screen refugees and have more discussions on who should enter the country. Many of the so-called refugees are men of military fighting age. Why are they not staying home and fighting for their homeland?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now thinking her loose policy of accepting millions of refugees might not have been such a good idea. I predict our generosity in accepting thousands upon thousands of Middle Eastern refugees is going to change our way of life. We are going to experience more terrorist attacks like the recent one in San Bernardino, Calif.

In Israel, it is not uncommon to see citizens in a cafe, drinking a cup of coffee, with a gun holstered in clear sight. Is that what liberal Democrats want? Because U.S. citizens are not going to give up our guns, and we are not going to stop going to cafes, shopping malls and sporting events.

Michael O. Kreps

Las Vegas