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Las Vegas Review Journal-November 6, 1950 “ We 'must have the water by next summer,” Colonel Chickering laid. “We have been informed that it would take between 16 and 24 months, after the bond Issue is passed before the water is available. As the bond issue probably will not be ready be­fore next spring, that would mean no more water would be available when we will need it The Nellis air force base is the most, and therefore, we will laying plans for the development! have to develop our own expand-pf its -own expanded water sys-; ed service. tem, to take care of the prob- “ The Las Vegas valley water able shortage which will pre- district is a good thing and will sent itself by next summer, it be needed if the Las Vegas area was revealed this morning by is to expand. However, under Air Base Maps ] Plans for Own Wafer Supply b Colonel E. S. Chickering, execu­tive officer of the base. As a result of the plan, the air base will not hook onto the pro- ! posed Las Vegas valley water district system when, as and if it becomes a reality. - Colonel Chickering said this I morning that the air base of- I ficials foresee an immediate i* water shortage when the hous-i‘ ing project at the base is com-i pleted, and reported that the : peak last summer was 900,000 . gallons per day, and by next summer that peak will be raised | to two million gallons. Water enough to supply that expected peak cannot be provid­ed by the present facilities at the 1 base, Colonel Chickering said, H i some means of augmenting the supply immediately had to be found. As a remit of this predica­ment, the air base requested a Survey team to come here from j Washington with the idea of de­veloping new sources. It was supposed that the supply could j not be augmented except by go­ing to Lake Mead, j However, when the survey team arrived and started work,! it was determined that the sup­ply could be expanded from un­derground sources. It was point­ed out that the air base appar-entfy is on a ^parate aquafoer end that, whereas the Las Vegas ; water table has receded in the past few years, the air base table I has risen some four feet since i i 1945. This, it was pointed out, would ' make it feasible to develop the necessary supply from the un­derground water sources and that it would be far cheaper for the air base to put down wells than it would be to share in the cost of the Lake Mead water svstem. our present and immediate needs, it will he necessary for us to get more water before next summer. Therefore, we will have to get our expansion pro­gram under way immediately,” Chickering said. Under the present plans; the air base will start the Work on the expansion of the water sys­tem immediately. The first pro­ject will "be to re-work th e J p e -! sent wells which are supplyui|i the base, and then start drilliiP new ones. This work probably will start in the next few weeks, lit was reported, i Meantime, officials of the Las Vegas valley water district said( that the air base plans would not' affect the program laid out for /the development of Lake Mead water for the valley area. Officials of the water district said that the air base project would cut the cost of the over­all program and would reduce the amount of bond money tube requested in the electron. The water district has most of the preliminary work done on the project now, and will be able to go ahead with plans for the faoud’ issue within the next few w eik s.