upr000026 32

Las Vegas,Nevada REVIEW - JOURNAL November 17,19^8 tu Oovernment May Furnish Wafer To Vegas Area Dispatches from Washington today, including mention of . 17 projects contemplated , for the next eight years by the bureau of reclamation, today threw new iight on a plan of the 1930’s to ' pump water from Lake Mead in- .to the Las Vegas area for “irri-j ' gational and municipal purposes” and indicated that the Las Vega's water district, recently formed, might have a strong ally in the! United States government, I, Listed in a United Press dis-! |patch, as one of the 17 projects, 'was merely a mention of “Las Vegas pumping.” The Review-Journal imme­diately contacted bureau of rec­lamation officials at Boulder City, who gave the following explanation of the item, al­though they asked that their names not be used: In the early 1930’s, when the dam was being built, plans were completely drawn for a system of pumps which would raise Lake Mead water to Las Vegas, to­gether with canals, tunnels and piping.JThe plan was at that time Water (Continued From Page 1) jabandoned because Las Vegas was too small to warrant such a large expense, it was said. At that time, the Water was to he used to irrigate 20,000 acres of land for the production of lush crops. In addition, it was to -be used for (municipal purposes.” The bureau officials said that the rate of consumption for munici­pal purposes was to have been made higher than the irrigation rate and that it was believed that (when Las Vegas grew large j enough, the returns to the bureau from the delivery of municipal j water would amortize the ex- j ‘penditure. While nothing official was giv-1 en out at the bureau offices in Boulder City, it was said that ap-j parently the high brass in Wash-j ington now felt that Las Vegas had grown .sufficiently in size, for would have grown to suitable, size within the next eight years, j to make the government invest- < ment feasible, with resultant amortization. In other words, the Boulder I City officials said, Las Vegas has not been forgotten by the government, and the entire dis- ? trict.may be supplied by need­ed water-with-the government constructing and paying for the facilities and getting the money hack through water deliveries. Under the Colorado river com­pact, Nevada is entitled to 300,000 acre-feet per year, and tile water, is therefore available. In Las Vegas today, it was pointed out that if the govern­ment constructed the facilities it would not be necessary to with-! draw water from the Henderson system, as is now proposed. If an independent pumping, tunnel and piping system was supplied, for the Las Vegas district, this would hush complaints which have been circulated in Hender- j son that any withdrawals of water by Las Vega? might cause the large operators eyeing the plant to look in some other di-: rection. . . ' f! The plan of the government to go ahead with pumping water into Las Vegas was further indi­cated by an Associated Press dis­patch which stated that vast pow­er and water projects costing, $679,553,000 are under way in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Idaho,! according to the reclamation bu-! reau. These plans were to provide ; j new or supplemental water for ; 4,108,705 acres, and 1,866,300 kilowatts of power by 1954. The Nevada projects, with number of acres to be irrigated, and power capacity and cost were enumerated as: Boulder canyon (part in Ne­vada, California and Arizona) 801,500 acres; 1,322,3:00 kw.; $245,- 809,000. • The Las Vegas pumping plant project was said to be included in these figures. Newly elected officials of the recently formed Las Vegas water district, which contemplates am­plifying the artesian water sup­ply of Las Vegas with Lake Mead water, via the Henderson reser­voir and an extension piping system, could not be reached for comment.