The USA used to be the baddest country on the planet.

- Want to go to the moon? Ok … 8 years and we are there.
- Europe overrun by Germany? Ok .. we’ll retool our major factories in a few months, go from creating technically inferior equipment to building the best of the best in a few years, personal sacrifice of the citizens to support the war effort, etc.
- Germany working on atomic bomb that could end the war in their favor? We all know how that turned out.

But now .. now we are governed by morons, by talkers and not doers.

So here is an idea. Politicians shut up, hire engineering firms and construction firms to create and bid on plans to build desalination plant on the coast of CA and run it to Lake Meade, do what it takes and get it done.

Cost is prohibitive? Compared to what. To hoping that snow melt run off returns to former volume even though the snow is not there to run off? Hope it rains a lot in the desert the next 100 years? I’ve been to Vegas many times. The economy in that city is staggering. The cost of doing nothing and jeopardizing the Nevada economy will cost Nevada and the US many times more than the cost of building the infrastructure to support the region.

How about a wind powered desalination plant with either nuclear or power grid electrical backup. How about the states out west (and the rest of the country) realize its time to stop infighting and work together to keep the USA as a major power in the world.

If any of these moron politicians thinks that our great military and economy will be sustained without solid infrastructure (here in the US .. not in Iraq) then they are leading us to the path of decline.

Or Nevada can do what Atlanta does; dont plan ahead, dont prepare for the future, and pray for rain.

Atlanta uses 3% of the water that comes out of Lanier daily.
The majority of the water released from Lanier is for downstream needs like power plants, big industry, and fish and wildlife…

Atlanta didn’t “outgrow” its supply. We make such a small dent in water usage, it’s ridiculous.

No doubt about our sprawl… that’s a problem in many ways. But that is not what caused this shortage. A lack of rain, broken dam gauges, outdated water management practices by the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s what caused the crisis we’re in now. If the Corps had instituted a plan of releasing just enough water to meet downstream requirements back when this drought started over a year ago, Lanier would be just barely lower than its average level for this time of year.

While I don’t claim to be an expert about the Atlanta situation, I know a little bit about Western water issues. Any prediction has a possibility of being wrong, but consider a couple of things.

The Colorado River system, that waters about 1/3 of the West, is already overallocated between upper and lower basins.

Phoenix, a city that sits in the middle of a hot, dry desert, is growing at 110K people/year. I don’t know the growth rate for Las Vegas, but right off the top of my head it has to be close to Phoenix’s. Nothing is slowing down in the L.A. area, which takes a big chunk of the Colorado.

The question is not whether, nor necessarily if it is climate-based, in the American SW. It is when.

It’s easy to Google up a ton of info on this– Colorado River Compact, Phoenix water supply, Las Vegas water supply. Books have been written on this, and it’s impossible to summarize in a short post.

Here’s the bottom line– who’s going to hit bottom first– Atlanta, a sprawl city in a wet part of the world that overgrew its supply? Or the more obvious desert megalopolises that never had the supply to begin with, but got it through borrowing and stealing as they went along?

While the 2014 date may be infotainment, the crisis is real and almost here for the desert Southwest.

Long live Infotainment.