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Las Vegas, Nevada October £5, 1945 Mr. E. 1. Bennett: oo: (frank Strong) (Walter B* Bracken) This refers to your letter of October 13, 1945, your file 174-E, in which you refer to Mr. Bracken’s letter to Mr. Strong of October 11th and Mr, Strong’s letter to Mr. Braoken of October l£th, and also refers to Mr. Bracken’s letter to Mr. Strong of October l?th and the reply thereto dated October 18th, 1945. In going over the transcript of the proceedings on water meeting held under the auspices of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce at the hotel SI Bancho-Vegas on November 3, 1944, the only reference to a water con­servation committee or district was that contained in a letter written to Las Vegas Land & Water Company in December, 1939, from the State Engineer Nevada, and from which X read an excerpt oif n tmhye Sttaaltk e too f the gathering. Part of said excerpt so read by me is as follows: "Control of indiscriminate drilling of the area is another and even more serious matter. Permits to drill wells all over the artesian basin are steadily coming into my office. These permits follow the usual course under the lew and are advertised and if protest is failed to be made by other persons using water in the basin, the applications for permits are approved. In my opinion it is high time that such wholesale drilling, which will undoubtedly result in a lowering of the hydro­static pressure over the whole areas very soon, should be limited. The agency to bring this about, however, must be the people living within the basin or using the water there. We have advocated the formation of a water con­servation district under the provisions of our new under­ground water law but so far the people of Las Vegas have taken no definite steps in that direction. Such e bo&v, once formed, can through its offioeis examine each appli­cation for a new permit to drill an artesian well and enter a protest on behalf of the district. -As it is, practically anyone can drill a well and dry out the under­ground basin. In the end this policy will cause the en­tire basin to lose water and your own company may be one of the heaviest losers." After reading that I went on to state "In response to that the Las vegaa Land ft water Com­pany, together with the County Coinsissioners, and I believ the Cltv of Las Vegas, signed the necessary certificate and filed it with the State Engineer’s Office so as to