According to the latest data, the water level at Lake Mead is only 28% full. It’s the result of a 30 year drought.
The other, less obvious reason, is the complete lack of political leadership to address the problem early on before it has become a crisis of immense proportions. In my opinion, true leadership occurs when one anticipates a problem in its early stages and implements plans to avoid long term crises.
By so doing, the costs associated with that vision are far less than what politicians have to do when there is absolutely no choice. That is the conundrum we are facing today.
There are seven states (Nevada, California, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming.
and part of Mexico) that rely on the lake to provide the precious commodity to their ever growing populations.
Since 1994 when the drought began, one political visionary did take action, the previous Director of the Las Vegas Valley Water District Pat Mulroy. In 1994 she implemented strict water conservation projects such as grass turf reductions that had a positive impact by reducing water usage. Her caveat was and still is, that conservation alone will not fix the water problem.
I can attest that when she did take that action, there was a lot of citizen pushback. But to her credit she stuck to her guns and we should all be thankful for it.
What I suggest as a solution is nothing new as the technology has been around for generations. Indeed, many countries around the world (Israel and Sudi Arabia are examples) and even parts of California have implemented this plan and it works.
So, what is it? Desalination! The problem? Cost & time. We would need to build a 325 mile pipeline to the Pacific Ocean.
That would take years to build at a cost in the billions. But what other course of action is there?
Mother Nature has made her feelings clear by not providing water at levels we need to survive. As our populations continue to grow, the demands on our water systems will continue to grow as well. That is not sustainable.
We better get started now in building that desalination pipeline or we all, including the politicians, will have to learn to live without it.
