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i i l Our individual springe and w ells produce variously from 500,000 to a maximum in a single well (No. 10) o f 3 , 000,000 gallons per day. With the narrow margin under which we are working, the hot weather outage of two or three of our lower producing v e lle , or of our b ig w ell, No. 10, for two or three days while production is being restored, or a break in one of our feeder lin es to the reser­v o ir, would not only ereate a shortage, but in event o f a serious f ir e place us in position fo r criticism from both the City and the Oo.mmlselon^S Another pertinent feature - we know from our records that the artesian pressures and production capacity o f our springs and w ells are showing a gradual d eclin e. In the absence of storage capacity that w ill enable building up a supply during the off-peak hours, we w ill unquestionably be faced with d r illin g additional wells from time to time to overcome the reduced production, and probably the acquisition o f additional property so that such addi­tion al w ells may be Spread to develop productivity. I fe e l our obligation as a public u t ilit y Is such that we must a fford the community reasonable protection against such contingencies, which protection can be afforded by additional stor­age capacity || To this end I am preparing estimate fo r and w ill reoom-mend fo r construction during the early winter months o f 19 ^6 , an additional reservoir with capacity o f not less than 7 *500,000 gal­lons , bringing our tota l storage capacity to 10,000,000 gallons, which, with pipe lin e connections, e t c ., is roughly estimated to cost $270 ,000. X do not know of any way to measure the growth or shrink­age o f Lae Vegas* population. The Manganese plant, formerly employ­ing about 600, is completely closed down. Basic Magnesium, formerly having an operating personnel o f about 5 ,$00, is now producing only ch lorin e, with employment o f about 25 0 . S t ill, there la not now a housing vacancy in Las Vegas, and the Chamber-of Commerce has p e ti­tioned Public Housing authorities to bring about construction of 200 additional homes. However, in spite of this unexplainable s it ­uation, I am not basing my Judgment upon an anticipated increase in population. Even i f the community holds it s own in the matter of population, or has an appreciable reduction therein, the need fo r th is additional storage s t i l l obtains. Frank Strong