Las Vegas Running Out of Water Means Dimming Los Angeles Lights

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — On a cloudless December day in the Nevada desert, workers in white hard hats descend into a 30- foot-wide shaft next to Lake Mead.

As they’ve been doing since June, they’ll blast and dig straight down into the limestone surrounding the reservoir that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’s water. In September, when they hit 600 feet, they’ll turn and burrow for 3 miles, laying a new pipe as they go.

The crew is in a hurry. They’re battling the worst 10-year drought in recorded history along the Colorado River, which feeds the 110-mile-long reservoir. Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. By 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of the city’s water.

As Las Vegas’s economy worsens, the workers are also racing against a recession that threatens the ability to sell $500 million in bonds so they can complete the job.

Patricia Mulroy, manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, is the general in this region’s war to stem a water emergency that’s playing out worldwide. It’s the biggest battle of her 31-year career.

‘We’ve Tried Everything’

“We’ve tried everything,” says Mulroy, 56, who made no secret of her desire to become secretary of the U.S. Interior Department before President Barack Obama picked U.S. Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado in December.

“The way you look at water has to fundamentally change,” adds Mulroy, who, after 20 years of running the authority, said in January she’s ready to start thinking about looking for a new job, declining to say where.

Across the planet, people like Mulroy are struggling to solve the next global crisis.

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Source: Bloomberg

L.A. will make water a terrible thing to waste

LOS ANGELES– With vital and often-distant water sources shrinking, Los Angeles officials today will revive a controversial proposal to recycle wastewater as part of a plan to curb usage and move the city toward greater water independence. The aggressive, multiyear proposal could do much to catch the city up to other Southern California communities that have launched advanced recycling programs.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s effort could cost up to $2 billion and affect a wide range of daily activities. For example, residents would be urged to change their clothes washers, and new restrictions would be placed on how and when they could water lawns and clean cars.

Financial incentives and building code changes would be used to incorporate high-tech conservation equipment in homes and businesses. Builders would be pushed to install waterless urinals, weather-sensitive sprinkler systems and porous parking lot paving that allows rain to percolate into groundwater supplies.

Just to meet a 15% increase in demand by 2030, officials say 32 billion gallons a year will have to be saved or recaptured – enough to cover the San Fernando Valley with a foot of water.

Prohibitions during the 1990s drought – banning residents from washing driveways and sidewalks, letting sprinklers flood into gutters and watering grass in midday – would be enforced again, with additional restrictions. One part of the proposal would limit lawn watering to certain days of the week.

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Source: L.A. Times

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com