Lake Mead, RIP 2017?

Now here is a study I can agree with. According to Tim Barnett and David Pierce, researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego, there is a 50% chance Lake Mead will not have enough water to operate the Hoover Dam by 2021, or worse, the lake may be completely dry! There is a 10% chance Lake Mead could be dry by 2014! Someone needs to Wake Up!

This takes into account the long drought and increased water usage, both above and below the dam. This is a case where the fecal matter is hitting the air circulator. For years Las Vegas has been sucking up water from Lake Mead, only to be used to water golf courses and pampered lawns that belong in the mid-west or east, not the desert south-west.

I rode out to look at the lake last weekend. It is anemic; 100 feet lower, or more than where it was nearly ten years ago when I first moved to this place of facades and oblivion. And yet people continue to waste, regardless of the television and newspaper spots, urging this city of excess to cut back. "It's a Desert Out There" is the tag line. Yet people still obliviously water and waste and apparently don't care.

The Colorado River is not only vital to Las Vegas, Laughlin and other river towns for supplying general purpose water, but is the veritable life blood of agricultural concerns from here, down to the Pacific. Farmers in Arizona, Southern Nevada, Southern California and parts of Mexico will have no choice but to let their farms dry up and blow away. Colorado River water is used for irrigation on a multitude of crops.

No water = no irrigation = no crops = no farms = more unemployment & higher food prices.

Why? Sure, the drought or climate change is a participant in this, but the primary culprit is Las Vegas and its citizens' attitudes.

Here's a suggestion to you, Mayor Goodman... You want to do something important that will make an impact? Tax the hell out of water in Clark County and use the income to make the golf courses and parks more "water smart." The citizens of Las Vegas may pull their collective heads out of their arses and use less water, if for nothing more than to pay less tax.

The result? Maybe reversing the draining of Lake Mead and the saving of thousands of farms down the river. Mayor Goodman, do something before the farms, small communities along the Colorado River, and maybe even Las Vegas become the first ghost towns of the 21'st century.

Read here: Google News collection of Lake Mead articles.