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Government May Furnish Water 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 •light on a plan of the 1930’s to| pump water from Lake Mead in­to the Las Vegas area for “irri-gational and municipal purposes” jand indicated that the Las Vegas' ; water district, recently formed, might have a strong ally in the United States government, Listed in a United Press dis­patch, as one of .the 17 projects, was merely a mention of “Las Vegas pumping.” The Review-Journal imme- | diately contacted bureau of ree- ‘ | lamia tion officials at Rotilder City, who gave the following j explanation of the item, al- , though they asked that their j 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, to- i gether with canals, tunnels and ? piping. The plan was_at that time ) IAS VEGAS KBVIEW-JOUEHAL November 17, 19^8* abandoned because Las Vegas j was too small to warrant such a large expense, it was said. At that time, the water was to be 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 enough, the returns to the bureau from the delivery of municipal water would amortize the ex­penditure. ? While nothing official was giv-ien out at the bureau offices in; | Boulder City, it was said that ap-; 1 parently the high brass in Wash- j jington now felt that Las Vegas » I had grown sufficiently in size,! I or would have grown to suitable size within the next eight years,; I to make the government invest- , iment feasible, with resultant! amortization. In other words, the Boulder City officials said, Las Vegas : has not been forgotten by the government, and the entire dis- j trict may be supplied by need­ed w ater w ith the government constructing and paying for the facilities and getting the money back through w ater deliveries. Under the Colorado river com­pact, Nevada is entitled to 300,000 acre-feet per year, and the water is therefore available. In Las Vegas today, it was jpointed out that if the govern­m ent constructed the facilities it (would not be necessary to with­draw 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 cpmplaints which have been circulated in Hender­son that any withdrawals of water by Las Vegas might cause the large operators eyeing the plant to look in some other di­rection. ; The plan of the government j 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 bu­reau. y f These plans were to provide new or supplemental w ater for I 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 arid cost were enumerated as: Boulder canyon (part in Ne­vada, California" and' Arizona) 801,500 acres; 1,322,300 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.