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LAS VEGAS R E V I E W JO URN AL P u b l i s h e d , ,Q C I -1 -7 -4 3 4 8 -------- F r o m W h e r e I Sif Many years ago, when I was but a youngster, blossoming forth in the newspaper business in these,parts, I: met a prophet. He never held himself forth as such, but his wisdom and vision, based op. long years of experience, were largely responsible for the progress and development we know here today. I came to value:his. counsel and to enjoy working with him on various matters of a com- j munity nature, planning the growth of the area and giving whatever -time might be neces-; sary to help bring many vital projects to fruition. When I first came here, he was interested, • primarily,, in construction- of Boulder Dam. As one of the original members of the Colorado River Commissioh,- he had played a major part in laying the . groundwork for that great struc­ture. It was then but a cherished dream, but he was' talking about.; the amount of power Nevada should obtain and insisted on an > allocation of water from the | stream flow. He stood virtually . alone. Nearly everybody else was interested only in construction of the dam, the real estate boom that would accompany it,, making their stake and getting out. Ed Clark, however, envisioned the day when the temporary ben­efits :had come and gone- and j there was necessity for some­thing more to sustain and build the area. He used to talk of in­dustry locating, here - and pre­dicted that the time would come when we wbuld1 have great fac­tories with, .permanent, I stable payrolls, and \ take our place among the producing Sections of the nation. He talked too of i water! —By A. E. Cohlan nesium then. But along came a war, the plant was built,' and with it the pipe-line,, .pumping plant and, all fae|lities':necessary to provide an “adequate water-supply. Part of the goal was'real-ized. The - Water HAD been brought- over the hill into Las Vegas Valley*.' % The most impor ­tant step bad -been taken. That’s where Ed-Clark left his dream—that far ‘ahd no farther. ; H e-w as called on. Those who worked with him down through ; the years and obsorbed his vision, kept right On. • When the war ceased and there was time for resumption ; of future planning,- A. C. Grant, C. D- Baker, Carl Hyde and others launched the'; formation of a water district'as the next step. They' realized as Clark, did that water is GOLD—that with- j out it, the development. hoped for here would n e v e r ,,b e achieved. The preliminary steps have, been taken. The fate of. this "portion of the_igreat pro­gram for this area will be'. de­cided next Tuesday at an elec­tion' to be held in . the area af­fected. . “Never forget, my friend, that water is gold!” he’d say, as he i pointed to many possibilities: He knew that without an adequate : water supply there cquld be no industry — that there could be little expansion along, the line he felt' was certain to come if properly planned. Many^ could - see development coming h'and in hand with electric power — few paid much attention to the other necessary commodity. In the beginning of the nego­tiations, Nevada’s share of the lower basin waters of the Colo- , rado River was placed at 300,000 • acre feet. There were some who were Willing to give away any or all of that allocation in order to bring about an agreement among the states. Clark stood pat and made his position stick. He used to gaze into his crystal ball and see water being pumped into a reservoir somewhere in the vicinity of Railroad Pass, with a high-line canal feeding it into a distributing system which would make possible the growth of high-priced crops—he believed there could be numerous types of nuts produced on such a pro­ject, and that the entire valley might be, reclaimed from the desert in this manner. You will vote for or against : the creation of the water dis- ; trict. Actually, your vote will be j for or against progress. There ,s, | considerable, capacity remaining in the 42 inch pipe line now reaching from Lake Mead to the Basic plant. Enough for the army; j air base and a sizeable addition to the present available supply ; in Las Vegas. 'This pipe-line, however, can carry but one-eighth of Nevada’s 300,000 acre feet oi'w ater into this valley. Other pipe lines will have to be built as the demand develops. At the moment; there is plenty for all purposes.. First call, of course, is the Basic plant and townsite where the maxi­mum demand this year was 10,- 000,000 gallons in one day com­pared to a pipe-line capacity ol 30,000;000 gallons per day. The army air base w ill use 4,000,000 gallons daily. The water district Will be a municipal corporation, with di­rectors elected by the voters. They will chart the Water future of the area if the project is ap­proved. Those who are skepti­cal should ' ask themselves this question: If not this proposal then how WILL we obtain the water we’re going to need?. • Los Angeles and environs long ago realized that growth was-limited only by its water sup­ply. The Metropolitan Water District was formed to bring it in from the Colorado River and now there’s a concrete plan to tap the Columbia far to the ndfth. Sounds fantastic , today, but Boulder Dam was much more fantastic when originally plan­ned. If Los Angeles is. to realize its destiny as the world’s greatest city, water WILL be brought from the north. It MUST be done! He even obtained the coopera­tion o4 the Bureau' of Reclama­tion in making an estimate of cost _ a pipe-line from Lake Mead, pumping system to lift the Water over the mountains, Construction of the reservoir and distributing system.- If. memory serves, the figure was $20,000,000. Though he realized the figure was prohibitive, he still talked a bit wistfully of the project and always insisted that some day water WOULD be pumped into the valley. The destiny of Las Vegas Val­ley is just as surely bound up in an’ adequate water supply. The artesian source is gradually „be- ? ing depleted and must be aug­mented. ; Defeat of the water district proposal would be a severe blow to the future—one from which it might take years to recover. There is only ONE answer—ap­prove the project at Tuesday s election. The real danger is that -proponents will NOT take the time to go to the polls. The - f erninsters and obstructionists w No one dreamed of Basic Mag- ill be put in force.