Nevada's Environmental Legacy: Progress or Plunder

CHAPTER FOUR

In Las Vegas Valley the phrase “liquid gold” means neither oil nor money; it suggests water. In the twentieth century Las Vegas became one of the least-probable urban centers in the United States, located in one of the driest, hottest spots on the continent. During the past century, it evolved from being a small watering hole in a parched, dusty southwestern valley into an extravagant tourist destination, envied and imitated across the globe. Its population grew from 30 residents in 1900 to more than 1.5 million a hundred years later. Its decorative water fountains throw colorful jets into the desert air day and night. The massive interstate highway network and McCarran International Airport bring tens of millions of visitors to the Las Vegas region every year. In 2005 McCarran was the sixth busiest airport in America in terms of passenger traffic, far ahead of many other far larger cities. It claimed several of the largest hotels in the world. Judged by the commercial standards of the twentieth century, LasVegashasbeenastunningsuccess.Itsetsthestandardforcompulsive , indulgent entertainment. Its main “industry”—tourism— usually reports profits even in times of recession. The ecological consequences have been little studied until recently. c h a p t e r f o u r The Southern Waters 55 Since the days when the earliest Hispanic explorers identified the oasis they called las vegas (the meadows), water has been the crucial factor in defining human activity in the valley. The Mormon missionaries, nineteenth-century ranchers, even millionaire senator William Clark who built the railroad between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles across the valley in 1904–1905 could not have undertaken their experiments had it not been for the artesian springs that oozed forth in the middle of this bleak basin. For the first four decades after 1905, Las Vegans gulped the natural sources of surface water and enhanced the natural springs with artesian wells. Agents of Senator Clark, in laying out the town only a century ago, installed a network of wooden pipes along its streets. He arranged for an icehouse near the railroad station to refresh the trains passing through. Clark’s Las Vegas Land & Water Company managed the water distribution system for the next fifty years. As the wartime boom of the 1940s began, these facilities were not adequate for the expanding community. The water company became a feudal relic, retarding the development of the municipality. Searching for a Water Policy For four decades, as Las Vegas grew, its civic leaders lurched toward urban status without a coherent plan. From the beginning, Las Vegans were extravagant in using the available resources from local springs and wells. The consumption per person was much higherthaninmostAmericancities,eveninthedesertSouthwest— maybe because it was hot or maybe because Las Vegans had become accustomed to a relatively generous supply from those almost miraculous sources in the middle of the arid desert. Businesses, residents, and visitors alike used quantities that hydrologists knew to be excessive. By 1939 more than five hundred wells were pumping from the aquifer; the water table was falling rapidly. In that year state engineer Alfred Merritt Smith persuaded the Nevada legislature to enact a law authorizing the state to regulate pumping from subsurface sources. Under his leadership, the 56 n e v a d a ’ s e n v i r o n m e n t a l l e g a c y state government adopted a responsible water management policy with restrictions that well served the growing city for another thirty years. The primary hopes of the city for a long-term source of water rested on the great river that flowed just beyond the horizon a few miles to the east. Under the provisions of the Colorado River Compact approved by Congress in 1922 and later adjusted by the courts, Nevada was entitled to draw three hundred thousand acrefeet annually from the river, or about 2 percent of its anticipated flow. Reaching this settlement was a long, tortured process. Nevada held few cards in this complicated poker game. The Colorado River system flows through or adjacent to seven states—Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California—all of which had to ratify the compact. (Mexico was also acknowledged to have a claim, but pragmatic Americans gave little attention to that fact.) The river system was presumed to carry an average of fifteen million acre-feet per year (afy) for use in the United...