Dear Editor,
For 30 years I witnessed firsthand how Las Vegas grew too fast for what water was available. The last 6 or more years that I lived in Las Vegas, there was always talk of putting a moratorium on pools, but to this day, there hasn’t been one, yet Las Vegas can’t curtail its wasteful habits, SNWA’s Pat Mulroy said there is NO OTHER ALTERNATIVE BUT TO BUILD THIS PIPELINE. She feels Lincoln County farmers/ranchers are wasting water when they irrigate their fields. Well, we feel Las Vegas wastes water in swimming pools, fountains, man made lakes and golf courses. Las Vegas’ gluttonous expansion was fueled by politicians who were getting kickbacks in some form from that very growth. Unions run Las Vegas. Unions built Las Vegas and it is a well known fact that unions support democrat politicians for solely political reasons which benefit them in their bargaining attempts. HOW THE HECK can any of the people making the final decisions on this pipeline think we, in the rural areas, are going to get a fair and balanced decision based on REAL unbiased scientific studies on this water grab by SNWA?
Anyone with 2 brain cells knows that pumping water through an 84” pipe 24/7 will draw down our water supply/wells and the devastating results will not be visible until it is far too late to do anything about it, much less reverse it. This notion that once they start pumping, SOMEONE will stop it if it endangers our way of life, the wildlife or the environment, is pure BS & all those involved in this water grab knows it! Once the pumping starts, they are not going to care one iota about Lincoln County. In their minds, Las Vegas is more important to Nevada than Lincoln County is. Shutting those pumps off would be like stopping a welfare recipients checks and expecting them to find other income alternatives without an argument. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN AND THEY KNOW IT! Why does the Nevada State Engineer and the BLM feel it is MORE important to ruin the rural areas of Nevada, to give OUR water to a very WASTEFUL & GLUTTONOUS Las Vegas, if not for the political pressure of those who benefit from the power & influence of Las Vegas? The unions will be the ones building this pipeline so the unions have a vested interest in seeing it built. The politicians who are elected by the unions have a vested interest in the pipeline project. The unions have Power, Money and Political Influence and ANYONE in a position to make this pipeline happen, will be influenced by the unions and/or the politicians who are influenced by the unions.
What I find most interesting is…that all the destruction the building of this pipeline will cause to our rural areas by all the barrage of trucks, equipment &man power in our pristine rural areas on land not before traveled on…is okay with the environmentalists as long as Reid & the other politicians keep closing off more & more of our lands to us & deeming them Wilderness areas to appease them. STOP THIS WATER GRAB NOW! Let Las Vegas learn to live within its means and its water allotment & let the rest of the state go on living like it has for decades.
It just seems to me that the people who are in position to makes these devastating decisions & the politicians involved do not think about what will happen to all the rural areas once Las Vegas has sucked all the water out of them & also in parts of Utah. Will they be happy when there are no wildlife, no trees, no plant species, brush, or springs that make up our state? Will they be happy when there are only a few cities left, Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City & Lake Tahoe with nothing but dirt & dust between them? Is that your vision of Nevada? Will you then move to another state after all of you have decimated this one? You will already have utilized your position & the power that it entails, made your money & moved on but what about the ones of us that loves this state the way it is right now &do not want to move on or can’t financially move to another state? If you continue with this devastating decision, we are the ones that will be left with a completely decimated area that is nothing more than a dust bowl consisting of some areas we cannot visit because they are off limits thanks to political pressure from politicians & special interest groups.
I often wonder if there is a single person alive in government who is actually willing to do their job, whether appointed to it or elected to it, that would not ‘Sell Their Soul’ for political gain & would do what is ethically & morally right? I’m wondering if those people that have the power to make the decision to allow or deny this pipeline project will do what is ethically & morally right concerning this pipeline….
A Proud but Wary RURAL Nevada Resident,
Patsy Dye