Writers on the Range: Las Vegas needs to let the market decide where the water goes

The famous slogan, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” once assured visitors that they were exempt from the wages of sins committed in the city of lights. It was the inspired product of the Las Vegas convention and tourism bureau. Not to be outdone, the local water authority is still promising cheap water in the middle of a scorching desert. Try to figure this out: A family of four in Las Vegas pays $1 a day for 400 gallons of water; meanwhile, a family of four in Atlanta — with 13 times the precipitation — pays $2 for the same amount of water. While most big cities sit on the banks of a river, lake or ocean, bone-dry Las Vegas owes its existence to Hoover Dam, 34 miles away. The dam is the source of the region's cheap water and power. Without the one, the fountains along the Strip would cease to dance and at least 60 golf courses would wither. Without the other, the lights would dim, and the air conditioners would stop humming. In the words of one official, the sprawling metro area of 2 million people would revert to “a place of sand dunes, mosquitoes and rattlesnakes.” Originally, it was thought that Mormon farmers would use the Colorado River water captured by the dam to create a smaller version of California's Imperial Valley. Instead, when work on the dam began in 1931, the city was invaded by a rowdy army of construction workers. Their employer, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, “invented modern Las Vegas.” As Emily Green of the Las Vegas Sun tells the story: “(The workers') needs could be largely summed up in a telephone book under B: boarding houses, brothels and bars. Moreover, that same year, Nevada legalized gambling. Las Vegas added a C to its key services: casinos.”...more