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Las Vegas,Nevada REVIEW - JOURNAL hi <! ______ November Government May j Furnish Wafer 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 1'930’s to pump water from Lake Mead in- to the Las Vegas area for “irrj- j gational and municipal purposes” ! fand indicated that the Las Vegas l water district, recently formed, ! might have a strong ally in the UpitSd States government. Listed in a United Press dis- I patch, as one of the 17 projects, was merely a mention of “Lasjj Vegas pumping.” . The Review-Journal imme- n diately contacted bureau of rec- j! : lamia tion officials at Boulder : j City, who gave the following i- explanation of the item, al- j though they asked that their i names not be used: In the early 1930’s, when the j dam was being built, plans were'! completely drawn for a system j 1 of pumps which would raise Lake j] Mead water to Las Vegas, to-1 gether with canals, tunnels and j piping. The plan was at that time I Water | (Continued From Page 1) abandoned because Las Vegas ;; was too small to warrant such a \ large expense, it was said, j At that time, the water was to be- used to irrigate 20,000 acres i of land for the production of lush crops. In addition, it was to be. j 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', i enough, the returns to the bureauf ! from the delivery o-f municipalj 1 water would amortize the ex­penditure. r While nothing official was giv- : en out at the bureau offices in ’ Boulder City, it was said that ap­parently the high brass in Wash­ington now felt that Las Vegas had grown sufficiently in size, or would have grown to suitable size within the next eight years, to make the. government invest­ment feasible, with resultant | amortization. ... 17, 19^8 { In other words, the Boulder j | City officials said, Las Vegas t has not been forgotten by the ' government, and the entire dis- I triet may be supplied hy need- ' ed water with the government constructing and paying for the facilities and getting the money : hack through water deliveries, j Under the Colorado river com­pact, Nevada is entitled to 300,660 acre-feet per year, and the water is therefore available. In Las Vegas today, it was pointed out that if the govern-; ment constructed the facilities it would not be necessary to with-’' draw 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 complaints 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 ; to go ahead with pumping water into Las Vegas was further indi­cated by an Associated-Press dis­patch which stated that vast pow- j er and water, projects costing $679,553,000 are under way in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Idaho, ? according to the reclamation bu­reau. These plans were to provide ? new or supplemental water for 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 and 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 he 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,__________ "_______*!