Opinion by David Von Drehle
Columnist
photo above: Lake Mead just above the Hoover Dam in Nevada last month. (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg)
WN: As in much else of the world, water in the American South and West is more precious than gold. As the writer above indicates:
Water was [always] the golden ticket, the key to prosperity.
excerpts:
The Achilles’ heel, the hard ceiling on western ambitions, was water, and everyone knew it.
From the earliest days, Western wisdom held that “whiskey is for drinking, but water is for fighting over.” Water wars erupted almost as soon as the settlers began occupying tribal lands. Water was the golden ticket, the key to prosperity. But unlike in the East, where reliable rivers just kept rolling, Western water was fickle. It roared and rampaged in certain seasons, and dried up entirely in others.
Everything came down to regular, dependable supply: who had it, who didn’t. All the Western miracles dangled on the question of water. Epics of engineering such as the Hoover Dam and the Los Angeles aqueducts. Vaulting visions such as modern Phoenix and Las Vegas. Miracles of agriculture such as the Central Valley of California.
Everyone knew deep down that the taming, steering and storing of water could go only so far before there was no longer enough to go around.
Virtually the entire West is tapped out. Extreme drought conditions prevail in all or parts of at least seven states. Wildfires are epidemic. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, is drying up, with less water in it than at any time since its creation in the 1930s.
The implications are staggering. An estimated 25 million people, plus their businesses and farms, rely on water from Lake Mead,fed primarily by the Colorado River. Moreover, many of them rely on power from the Hoover Dam, where reservoir water drives the generators. The dam’s performance is now severely threatened by the falling water supply.
…
The long-dreaded future of insufficient water is here. Action must be taken on a gargantuan scale and an emergency timetable. The risk is great that Westerners will snarl this up in a debate about climate and environmentalism. But left or right, red or blue, thirsty is thirsty.
That’s where we are now.
Please click on: West’s Water Crisis is Here