upr000288 82

industrial development in the Las Vegas area, has necessitated the drilling of a number of wells to supplement the available water supply. Well No. 2 was provided in 1936 and in 1939 Nos. 3 and 4 were drilled; Wells Noe. 5 and 6 were added in 1941, and four more, Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10 are now under contract. That pumping would become necessary in time has long been foreseen, and it is now planned to equip new Wells 5, 6 and 9 and the older No. 4 at once with electrically operated pumps, powered from the railroad power plant in Las Vegas. The water entering these spring's and wells is part of the drainage into the Las Vegas Basin or Valley from surrounding mountains, notable among which is Mount Charleston (nearly 12,000 feet). It hes b e e n established that the volume of water underlying the surface is limited, though the total available for use has never been determined. Since 1907 more than three hundred wells have been drilled In this valley, and from some of them water has been allowed to waste continu ously. The State Engineer, realizing that this condition should be corrected, has called attention to the need for the capping of all un­u s e d wells, but this has not been done and the waste continues. Moi e serious waste, perhaps, has been through the lax practices of city con­sumers in Las Vegas (referred to further on in this report), and from leakage of the wood stave pipes heretofore used In our transmission and city distribution lines, the last of which were only replaced with cast iron pipe late in 1941. Mr. Reinhardt, in a letter of May 6, 1940 to Mr. Jeffers, on P r e s i d e n t ' s file 353-2-L, expressed the opinion that there is ample vater in the U b Vegas Basin to supply a population several times as large as