Another way to get more water for Las Vegas?

Interesting brief article in the Reno Gazette-Journal puts up an idea for acquiring more water for Las Vegas – one that I hadn’t heard before:

An act of Congress would be needed to direct Walker River water to Los Angeles for a trade for better Colorado River water rights for Las Vegas, “but such an act led to the present University of Nevada water acquisition program to begin with”.
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So states the final Environmental Impact Statement Socio-Economic Evaluation report from the Nevada Department of Agriculture completed by Director Anthony L. Lesperance, Ph.D.

In fact, in the final of three recent reports, Dr. Lesperance draws the same conclusions as in his previous draft reports, but adds: “It would be a relatively simple matter to direct Walker River water to the existing aqueduct system serving the greater Los Angeles area, which could be traded for better right on the Colorado River for Las Vegas.”

Of course, one significant hitch here is that there is a big fight going on to save Walker Lake, a terminal lake in central Nevada, which is suffering because of upstream diversions for irrigation in the Mason & Smith valleys. In a related story, Director Lesperance warns, however, that removing water from the Walker River basin would be a bad idea:

No matter what any UNR/DRI research project criticisms of his report may state, Dr. Tony Lesperance, Director of the Nevada Department of Agriculture, Tuesday refused to back down, adding, “To remove Walker River water from its present agriculture use in Smith and Mason Valleys will have irreversible consequences of great significance to the area, the region and the State of Nevada.”.

Read more from the Reno Gazette Journal here and here.

Picture credit: Aerial shot of Walker Lake by flickr photographer BitHead.

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