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shots fired in Nevada?

Las Vegas is seeking to quench its growing thirst by draining billions of gallons of water from under the feet of ranchers whose cattle help feed the Mormon church's poor.

A legal battle across 275 miles of treeless ridges and baked salt flats comes as the western U.S. faces unprecedented droughts linked to climate change.

The surface of Las Vegas's main source of water, Lake Mead, is more than 100 feet below Hoover Dam's spillways after reaching the lowest mark last summer since the dam was filled. As it seeks new sources, the city's water supplier is waging a court fight over plans to suck as much as 27 billion gallons a year from the valley that is home to the Mormon ranch and its 1,750-head herd, as well as three other rural valleys.

Casino resorts, five of which are Southern Nevada's largest commercial water users, labor unions and the developer of a 22,500-acre mini-city west of Las Vegas argue their future depends on the water supply that the church, Indian tribes and environmental groups say is needed by local communities.

The fight, likely to echo across the increasingly arid West, conjures up the Los Angeles water grab that turned the once prosperous Owens Valley into a dust bowl.

As cities including Denver and Phoenix look to secure water for growing populations and economies, the prospect of sustained droughts, more severe and sustained than any in the 20th century, looms over Nevada's court battle, with one pipeline opponent calling it the "poster child" for future showdowns.

The 7,000-acre Cleveland Ranch, established in Spring Valley in 1873 by Maine native Abner "Old Cleve" Cleveland and bought in 2000 by the Mormon church, sits atop an aquifer a dozen-plus miles to the north of Route 50, known from postcards as "America's Loneliest Highway."

The ranch, owned by the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is worked by a combination of paid employees, church missionaries and other volunteers, according to a history of the ranch. The calves, after they are weaned, are shipped to an Idaho feed lot and then to a processing plant, where some of the meat is frozen or canned as stew and beef chunks for distribution around the world.

If the Southern Nevada Water Authority wins in court, its proposed groundwater project may leave the valley to sage brush and coyotes, according to lawyers for the church and environmentalists.

"This is a huge project that raises fundamental questions," said Paul Hejmanowski, a lawyer for the church. "Can we sacrifice an ancient way of life for a growing metropolis?"

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchy.....rylink=cpy

Crazy to think this is happening

More than 1 million Californians don’t have reliable access to clean water

ARVIN, California – Californians who grumble about not being able to water their lawns everyday during the fourth year of a historic drought should swing by this small town in southern Kern County.

Drought or no drought, residents of this rural community can’t drink water from the tap and can’t even use it for cooking because high levels of arsenic — known to cause cancer — become even more concentrated when water is boiled.

“They worry about little things,” said Salvador Partida, president of the Committee for a Better Arvin, of the rest of the state. “We’re worried about not being able to drink the water.”

Last week Gov. Jerry Brown ordered the State Water Resources Control Board to enact mandatory cuts in water use by 25 percent. But more than 1 million California residents who live in mostly rural areas have unreliable access to safe drinking water, according to the Community Water Center, a non-profit group that advocates affordable and clean water for all Californians. For them, the ongoing drought that is ravaging the state's water supply is merely a sideshow.

Tap water that comes mostly from wells in these communities violated maximum contaminant level standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency at least once in 2012 – the most recent annual compliance report by the state’s drinking water program.

The number of violations with potential direct public health impact may affect even more people because of insufficient regulation and under-reporting, especially in areas served by small systems, said Heather Lukacs, project director at the Community Water Center.

More than 100 areas with fewer than 10,000 people had arsenic violations. Most are small, poor communities with a predominantly Hispanic population, some of whom are forced to spend up to 10 percent of household income on bottled water.

As of February of this year, the state reports that approximately 255,000 people served by 341 systems got water that was not potable. Almost half of the residents affected were getting water that exceeded the acceptable level of arsenic. The number is expected to rise over the entire year as more violations are reported.

“A lot of it is aged infrastructure,” said Sarah Buck, rural development specialist with the Rural Community Assistance Corporation. “And it’s very expensive to drill additional wells.”

There is now a statewide effort to bring safe drinking water to all Californians. The Agua4All campaign, a coalition of state and advocacy groups, including The California Endowment, has just launched pilot programs here and in nearby Lamont and the Coachella Valley to bring water fountains and water bottle filling stations to schools, parks and community centers.

The plan is to place Agua4All stations in all parts of the state that need them.

In 2012, the groups — all members of the Safe Water Alliance — sponsored The Human Right to Water Bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. California became the first state to legally recognize that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking and sanitary purposes.

The bill helped launch the current effort to provide “point-of-use water treatment systems” that remove arsenic from the water at drinking fountains in poor communities. A state grant of more than $400,000 is helping provide up to 69 filters to install on new Agua4All water fountains and continued maintenance. This is the first time the State Water Board has funded such a large number of treatment systems at water stations.

“Everybody knows the water can’t be drunk because it stinks,” Partida said. “I’m not going to drink that and I’m certainly not going to let my kids drink that.”

Partida and his wife spend $4 to $5 a week for two 5-gallon jugs of clean water.

“So you can imagine if you’ve got a lot of kids,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the population in Arvin buys bottled water … I’m amazed nobody was doing anything about it until now. A lot of people need to wake up.”

more http://america.aljaz.....water.html

Interesting article from newsweek

The world is at war over water. Goldman Sachs describes it as “the petroleum of the next century”. Disputes over water tend to start small and local – for instance, with the sort of protests that drought-stricken São Paolo has experienced this year. But minor civil unrest can quickly mushroom, as the bonds of civilisation snap.

It is often forgotten that the revolution against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad began this way, when youths of the southern Syrian town of Daraa, angry at the local governor’s corrupt allocation of scarce reservoir water, were caught spraying anti-establishment graffiti. Their arrest and torture was the final straw for the tribes from which the youths came. It was a very similar story in Yemen, whose revolution began in 2011 in Taiz, the most water-stressed city in that country.

When we think of Syria now, we cannot see far past the threat posed by Islamists. But Isis, in the end, is a symptom of social malfunction. If order is to be restored, we might do better to start focusing instead on the causes. Then we could perhaps look harder for “soft power” solutions – the restoration of governance and basic services, such as electricity and water supply – rather than for hard power ones, such as missiles and bombs.

more http://www.newsweek......24328.html