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In his opening remarks, CHAIRMAN MAX KELCH, said, in part* "The Chamber of Commerce and a ll of our citizens are interested in a great expansion program fo r our part of the State. We fe e l that our p o ssib ilitie s are unlimited, but the development of this area, as in other areas, depends upon an adequate supply of water at reasonable rates fo r farming, domestic use, and fo r the use of industry, we want this conference to be productive of good. Let’ s be sure that i t is . With this b rie f introduction of the purpose of our meeting, I would like to c a ll upon Mr. Prank Strong, Industrial Agent o f the Union P acific Railroad, to talk to us f i r s t , and to discuss the ptoblems that he wishes to discuss at the re­quest of the representative here." MR FRANK STRONG* We are here in response to your invitation to a it in on a round-table disoussion of the problems of the water situation in the Las Vegas Valley Artesian Bel t , in which Belt your City is'-located . The future growth o f this community is o f mutual in terest to a ll of us, and these problems must be worked out together. I have read the questionnaire which accompanied your letter* but do not in it ia lly propose to separately answer the questions contained therein. I w ill present the general situation as wo view i t , after whioh we w ill be glad to answer any questions you may care to ask. F irst, I wish to state that the protest file d by the Las Vegas Land and Water Company, in its capacity as a public u t ilit y serving the City of Las V„gas, against the d r illin g of certain wells was not made with any s e lfis h motive on the part of the Water Co., nor was i t made with the idea of forever prohibiting the d r illin g of additional w ells in the Las Vegas V alley. From our records; we fe&l that we are confronted with a serious problem affectin g the citizen s of your commun- Hsy* and that the matter should be submitted to the judgment of the State authorities and the public through the medium o f a public hearing, whioh we are advised w ill be held by the State Engineer at an early date. At that hearing we propose to submit, b r ie fly ! the data we have! which we fe e l indicates the necessity fo r immediate steps directed toward the s tr ic t enforcement of rigid conservation measures for the protection o f the great asset to your community of the fin est water in the State of Nevada, and perhaps any other State in the Union. We do not propose to submit at that hearing a mass of theoretical compil­ations, but rather to bring out in a practical manner the apparent gradual depletion of the underground reservoir serving the community and the consequences that must follow with unlimited depletion of this reservoir. I have frequently heard the opinion expressed by people of Las Vegas that our water supply is inexhaustible; that i t flows through mysterious underground channels from Lake Tahoe, or Walker Lake, or both, and can only be exhausted when those lakes dry up. This theory is without any possible geological foundation, and while I do not wish to enter into any technical discussion whatever, I would like to quote b r ie fly from a report made by our former G eologist, Mr. R. G. Greene, after a preliminary study of the water resources in the Valley. A portion of this report is as follow s: "Although two weeks time is in su fficien t to permit com­pilation of data fo r a preoise determination of the artesian water inventory, oertain hydrologic features are fa ir ly obvious. Despite the conclusion that the recharge rate of underground oonduits, as indicated by a slow but con­( 1)