Sprawling cities in the desert - stupid idea
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Posted on August 15, 2006
Filed Under Deep ecology, Ecological overshoot, Ecological hope, Consumer culture, Population growth, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Seems “northern Nevadans don’t want to gamble with their water.” So reports the Washington Post this morning. Imagine that – folks that have lived in the desert all their lives don’t want to send their precious water to the irrationally growing Las Vegas. If ever there was a city built where it should not be, this is it – and still growing, more rapidly than any city in the US.
Seems ranchers and other rural folks are aware of what happened to the now infamous Owens Valley of California (this link also has a dramatic slide show of the dried basin) – a river running through a desert that was feeding a lake that was drained dry for the city of Los Angeles, a project that “turned a lush agricultural community into an environmental disaster.”
We are something, aren’t we? We just can’t stop this destructive behavior, motivated by this seemingly intractable belief that we Americans should be able to live anywhere we want to, no matter how ecologically inappropriate. We don’t live with the earth, we live and want to live over and above it, putting it at the service of our wants and desires.
The great comeuppance is coming, not too long from now. We live in an economy fueled by, built upon, this belief framework. Many incomes and profits depend upon it. We could plan our way out of this, but no one wants to give anything up. Let me get to the desert first, then we can stop growth.
Folks, we don’t have the water for this kind of economy, among other precious resources. We have to stop this, plan differently, allow the possibility of halting commercial and residential growth where it is simply not appropriate.
Residents of northern Nevada are aware of what’s at stake: “This is going to create a sacrifice zone of thousands of square miles so Las Vegas can continue to be the fastest-growing city in the [US].”
I’m from Wisconsin. We who hail from or still live in the Great Lakes region are aware that the southwest developers want our water, too, a massive water pipeline that would begin to drain these massive fresh-water lakes, surely one of the natural wonders of the world. Thanks to the political difficulty of dealing with several states and the country of Canada, all of whom are saying “HANDS OFF!” the proposals have not gotten very far. Visit this link, Clean Wisconsin, for more updated info.
Check out the cynical quote with which the Post ends the article. How is it that these folks who have lived on the land so long are suddenly ‘the privileged?’
When the aquifers in the west are drained dry, that’s it, folks. Turn on the tap, nothing will come out. Is this really what we want to leave for future generations?
No more sacrifice zones! It’s the irrational development that needs to stop.
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Las Vegas wants to perpetrate a water grab – Owens Valley style.
Urban, rich, Southern Nevada wants to pipe in water from the deserts of Rural Nevada. Almost everyone in Rural Nevada is against this (and maybe most residents of Las Vegas too). But, Rural Nevada has the politically unenviable trait of being the least densely populated area in the Nation – which means that Rural Nevada has historically been the victim of always being in the minority. This time, however, it’s “screw Nevada”… by Nevada. And it makes no sense… Las Vegas wants to take water from the desert.
Las Vegas politicians are willing to essentially kill a pristine natural environment in Central Nevada, almost the size of Vermont, to perpetuate an artificial tropical island lifestyle of water waste. Las Vegas developers are drooling for the profits they could get by sustaining unsustainable growth – in a city that is already congested to the point of daily gridlock. And maybe, probably actually, someone is scheming to make billions… by manipulating water customers like addicts.
What makes this whole thing so unjust is that it’s not necessary. Las Vegas could build offshore, wave powered, desalination plants – and offer more water to California than Las Vegas would be asking for, in an exchange for a larger allotment from the Colorado River. This would likely end up being more profitable in the long run. Because (in case Southern Nevada hadn’t noticed) more water is available from the Ocean than the desert.
So, why doesn’t Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) desire the less ecologically devastating option? Because, they claim that present desalination costs are slightly higher than the 10 year old estimates for the pipeline network. This ignores some facts. Although it is true that very high pressures are presently required for desalination, new desalination membranes have been invented which would substantially reduce desalination costs. Not surprisingly, one point SNWA has neglected to mention to us is that the power demands to pump water up to 250 miles across the State of Nevada won’t be cheap with the pipeline network either – and won’t get any cheaper (like desalination). SNWA wants to depend on coal fired power to run the pipeline pumps for the next 75 years. Here’s an example of SNWA’s apparent lack of foresight, the price of coal is bound to go up – while the price of waves, wind, and solar will always be zero. So, why is it that SNWA is so unwilling to think outside of the box? Is it just short term thinking? Has Las Vegas just insisted on getting what’s cheapest now? Or, is there a secret agenda?
SNWA is a quasi-municipality, but it isn’t responsive to community like a typical municipality. Drying up Central Nevada isn’t the best thing for Las Vegas. It will hurt Vegas’ tourism industry. And, of course, this obviously isn’t the best thing for Nevada… This is a water grab. And, historically, every water grab has made someone rich.
Someone may be scheming for a way to exploit us. Hey, why make water for California for free, when you can sell it to them? Why pay to desalinate water, when you can take water from Rural Nevada and get paid to redistribute it? So, SNWA; you may be a municipality, but what would a corporation do?
1.They would try to get as much free stuff as they can from the government.
2.They would provide some value added service to that free stuff.
3.They would charge as much as the market could bear for it – maybe even limiting supply to push up prices.
So far, SNWA is acting more like a corporation than a quasi-municipality (whatever that is). Maybe they have plans they haven’t told us about. Could SNWA one day be privatized? Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be. All that has to be privatized is some small process of the delivery of the water. From there, a choke-hold on supply can cause prices to skyrocket. Remember Enron power prices? Have you checked the profits of the oil companies recently? It appears that something that looks a lot like price gouging is becoming a common tactic to boost profits. Hey, why make fresh water, when its more expensive if you don’t.
So, just what would someone do to score windfall profits?
SNWA has aligned themselves with the coal lobby, by promising to use coal fired power plants to run the giant pumps for the pipeline network. Other than for a political alliance, and the extra political clout to push this through, why would SNWA do this? Coal fired power plants require thousands of acre feet of water – that SNWA covets. Let’s face it. Nevada has no water to run coal fired power plants. Nevada has no coal. Rural Nevada has no infrastructure to support the construction of the plants. Rural Nevada has few skilled employees to build and operate these plants. And most important, Rural Nevada doesn’t have the customers to consume the power from additional coal fired power plants. The only thing Rural Nevada has, is what it doesn’t have, enough people to stop a big corporation from forcing a massively water wasting, polluting coal fired power plant down our throats. Yes, I said polluting. “Clean coal” is an oxymoron… Where does the pollution go? They’re not magicians. They can’t just get the chemicals to disappear. If they could, why haven’t they helped out the auto industry? Most of the visible air pollution would just be stored on the ground, in toxic sludge ponds, waiting to leak into what’s left of our ground water. Talk about “screw Nevada.”
Benjamin Franklin once said that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.” It’s pretty easy to figure out where this is all headed. This will just be the next, inadvertent step in the decades long, de facto effort, by the rest of the NIMBY Nation, to make Nevada a dumpsite – a wasteland. Nevada is not a wasteland.
Nevada has the most environmentally virgin lands in the continental US. Nevada has the most mountain ranges in the continental US. Many of those mountains are covered with unique and beautiful forests. Nevada has many rare animals and plants that might be pushed to extinction by the trashing of our State. Nevada even has the largest Wildlife Refuge in the continental US – which is at risk from the water grab. Nevada is special. Nevada is worth saving.
For more information, check out my blog; NoShootFoot
http://noshootfoot.blogspot.com/
Thank you,
Rick Spilsbury
Nevada is certainly worth saving. But we are going to see plenty more struggles like this one in the future — fights over scarce resources. In the private sector corporate world, scarce means more valuable and that means more windfall profits. This is why putting the fate of our water in the hands of corporations and developers is courting unprecedented disaster.
As for the lie of ‘clean coal,’ this blog will be posting on that in the future.
Thanks for this comment.
Margaret
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