Requiem for a River

Comments

• Michael Garabedian wrote on March 02, 2008, 09:14PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  The Nevada Engineer looks at perennial yield which is not sustained yield by definition. The water rights applications are based on a "water budget," the concept that water withdrawal does not exceed the natural predevelopment discharge. "The predevelopment water budget only indirectly provides information on the amount of water perennially available, in that it can only indicate the magnitude of the original discharge that can be decreased (captured) under possible, usually extreme, development alternatives at possible significant expense to the environment." USGS Circular 1186, Sustainability of Ground-Water Resources (1999), pages 18 and 22. Las Vegas Valley Water District filed the 146 original water rights applications in 1989, is still there in Las Vegas, and is a member of SNWA. The Nevada Engineer has a public interest test for interbasin transfers of water.

• Terry Marasco wrote on March 07, 2008, 08:51AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Often, it is not the water but the water managers that need to be managed. We in the Snake Valley, NV do not trust Pat Mulroy as here words differ from her actions as the following notes:

  Pat Mulroy, the SNWA General Manager at the Sept 11 hearings: “We have a new ethic to protect environmental resources” and “We have an environmental record beyond reproach”. And she also said re the Owens valley: Pat Mulroy finds such comparisons ridiculous. “Owens Valley was a time and place when this country had no environmental ethic and no environmental laws. Those days are gone,” she insists.

  Just before a newspaper ad campaign in Nevada suggesting the Water Authority is concerned about environmental issues associated with the pipeline project, this from the Nevada State Engineer’s Office: “State Engineer Tracy Taylor, in a 19-page decision, largely rejected an effort by lawyers for the Southern Nevada Water Authority to limit consideration of environmental issues in the hearings, scheduled Sept. 11-29 in Carson City. Taylor also rejected a Water Authority motion to exclude consideration of the effects on recreation and "scenic values" the ground water pumping and exportation could have.”

  Another critical point is her spin on conservation: Las Vegas uses far more water per capita than say Tuscon or Albuquerque. Mulroy has a long way to go here to be credible on conservation.

• Harsha wrote on March 27, 2008, 01:55PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Tim: good job as always.

• Rob wrote on April 01, 2008, 07:31PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  The root of all evil is unbridled population "growth." Actually, it is population explosion, relative to sustainability, which demands a population decrease. It is the 5000 pound elephant in the room that few, if any, talk about - population expansion. Bad news for all the good folks trying to conserve, reuse, recyle, etc. Too many footprints, too many carbon and water footprints. No matter what technology and other measures yield, population growth will outpace the gains. It is far, far, far past time to stop granting tax exemptions beyond one child per couple per lifetime. It's time to require breeding pairs to fund the offsets to the damage they are causing. If not in dollars, then in donated time - donated time at the schools they do not fund (breeders getting, instead, an undeserved tax exemption for the pain they cause ethical people), work on the conservation easements, work in the planned parent agencies, etc. It's time for breeders to pay the real cost of the selfish, callous, unethical, costly damage with which they are saddling nature.

• Deban wrote on April 16, 2008, 11:04PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Tim,

  Great humor in such a compellingly serious story. I find you to be a truly gifted scribe.
  Thanks for the care.

  Namaste' dp

• Janice wrote on April 29, 2008, 12:29PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  I agree 100% that POPULATION is driving a great deal of the environmental problems. I have been a ZPG (that will tell you my age) proponent since I was 14 years old and living in Salt Lake City - Home of the "Go Forth, Multiply, and Replenish the Earth" folks. I have only been through Las Vegas on my way to California and would never consider that a fun place to visit. We have got to open up that ugly POPULATION discussion - much like the one we need to have about Race - but our planet can NOT sustain the level of humanity growing at the current rate - no way/no how. Bad Foreign policy coupled with the ridiculous RELIGIOUS beliefs will make this very hard to do. However, I believe that if we don't start making seriously hard choices, the planet will make them for us and we won't have to worry any more because most of humanity will be dead.

• rollem88 wrote on May 02, 2008, 12:16PM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  I feel like I've lived too long. . .

• Jason wrote on June 12, 2008, 11:16AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  Janice,
  Congrats on your bigoted attitudes in regards to religion. Perhaps you should not consider yourself the person to decide the fate of our plantet, as I am sure you are only slightly more intelligent than your post makes you seem.

• Jason wrote on June 12, 2008, 11:17AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  *sp* planet

• dan walthall wrote on August 27, 2008, 01:29AM : Flag this comment as inappropriate

  When colorado river water users wish to have more water they can have about 9 million AF when they are able to pay for the desalination.
  That is desalinate 1.5 million AF and give to Mexico,
  and 7.5 million AF for those below Glen Canyon.
  There would be some additional pumping costs.00000-