upr000229 17

MR. GRIFFITH# I am in accord with your program of conservation - restriction and use - that has to be determined by the people. I want to know if you will take the responsibility of pointing that out to us. We have a sub­stantial investment in this community, and we make a living here, and someone has taken the responsibility of telling us that we have reached the limit, and its a tremendous responsibility, and it must be solved in some practical manner certainly by everyone interested, and you, as State Engineer, if you will accept that responsibility, it will take a big load off our minds, I bring that up respectfully, MR, LEO MoNAMEEt The questions and answers that have been made here kind of leave a pessimistic feeling in the minds of the members of this organiza­tion and of the community, and I don’t think we should leave here with such a pessimistic view, For instance, Mr, Down’s question was whether or not the Las Vegas Land & Water Company had made any plans for the bringing in of water to supply this community other than with underground water,' I suppose he had in mind not only bringing in water from Mead Lake but going up into the mountains and running tunnels into the mountains and piping the water down here to where it oan be used, I don’t purport to be an engineer or know about water engineering but I have had sufficient conversations and disoussions with engineers to be able to state that with the present development of underground water in this community, we have not as yet reached our maximum. However, it would be uneconomical and insufficient to go into the Charleston Mountains to bring water down here because that water already comes down here. That’s the water that is the source of our underground supply, Now, I will state to you that it is absolutely prohibitive for the Las Vegas Land & Water Company or for any other private individual to endeavor to get water from Mead Lake for this community. It will have to be done by someone who oan finance it. For instance, the Las Vegas Land & Water Company saw the possibility of bringing Basic Magnesium Corporation into this community, especially after their scouts came out and looked it over and made their surveys of this territory, but they didn’t expect the Las Vegas Land k Water Company to furnish water necessary to accommodate a plant the size of Basic Magnesium, % Now, for industries, ordinary industries, that may come into this place — of course, before they come in, they will make their surveys to determine whether there is sufficient water here for their uses. If its an industry that will require as large an amount of water as Basic Magnesium require, they will be reqi’ired to get their own water from the only available source, namely# T.pVf> Mead. Now, the purpose of this meeting, or I might state, that the purpose of filing the protests against a certain permit that was filed here, was this# Las Vegas Land & Water Company, at the time of this protest, did have some trouble with its wells. In May of this year, the daily average, or the daily consumption, was 8 million gallons, and that was greater than the maximum daily use of the year previous. The previous year - the maximum daily consumption in this City was 8 million gallons. That was during August and September - during the hot months. In May of this year, our consumption reached 8 million gallons. We didn’t know what it was going to be during June and August? in fact, it went up to 11 million gallons during July and August - 11 million gallons a day, and in May, when this protest was file£, we deoided that it was necessary to take some steps in order to make this community conservation conscious, especially in view of the fact that the State Engineer, some four or five months ago, when he was here, addressed the Rotary Club and other Clubs, as to the necessity of conservation in this area, (12)