Print View From: Daniel Craig Mccool To: "snakevalley@utah.gov" CC: Daniel Craig Mccool Date: Wednesday - September 30, 2009 12:35 PM Subject: Snake Valley Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed Snake Valley Pipeline. My concerns focus on the "environmental escape clause," i.e. the language in the proposed settlement that purports to protect the environment of Snake Valley if the pipeline is built and then evidence shows that it is doing demonstrable damage to the flora, fauna, soil, and water table in the area. Las Vegas argues that this clause protects the Snake Valley from potential future harm. However, a dose of political reality demonstrates the absurdity of that claim. If Las Vegas builds this pipeline, at a cost of several billion dollars, and then we discover that the dire predictions of irreversible environmental damage actually come to fruition, it will be too late to reverse our actions. Las Vegas wants to build this pipeline so they can provide water for sprawling suburbs. The cost of the pipeline is enormous; such projects always cost more than their estimated cost, so it is not unreasonable to assume that this pipeline will cost $4 billion. Once that system is in place, there is no chance whatsoever that it will be abandoned if we discover that it is doing significant environmental damage to the area. No reasonable person would assume that Las Vegas, upon a showing that the pipeline is actually having the detrimental impact that so many are predicting, would suddenly abandon the pipeline, forsake its enormous investment, and tell all the people living in those suburbs that they no longer have a source of water. That will not happen. Instead, what will happen is that Las Vegas will first deny there really is much impact, then express its regrets, and then tell Utah we should get a bill through Congress forcing the federal government--the American taxpayer--to pay for mitigation and damages. The long-term losses for Utah, rural Nevada, America's public lands in that area, and the American taxpayer will be staggering. This proposed pipeline actually represents an opportunity, in two ways. First, the pipeline must be opposed by a broad-based coalition of grass-roots organizations and individuals that includes ranching and farming groups, environmental groups, fiscal conservatives, people in Las Vegas that don't want to pay for a big wasteful government boondoggle, and protectors of public lands in Nevada and Utah--including the agencies that manage them. Such a coalition would have the power and influence necessary to take on Las Vegas and win the battle against this pipeline. Second, this is an opportunity for Las Vegas and other western cities to start thinking about a new hydrological reality that forces them to live within their means. The notion that Las Vegas, and other western cities, can grow infinitely, in a world of finite resources, is illogical and essentially destructive. We now live in an age of limits, and the water problem facing Las Vegas is an opportunity to reexamine existing beliefs, assumptions, laws, and policy, and develop a new approach to sustainable cities and a viable economy that does not destroy its ecological foundation. It is also time to question the validity of the 1922 Colorado River Compact and consider significant revisions. It should be clear to all parties that the current system of water laws and policies, designed in another, vastly different era, no long serve the public interest. Building pipelines will not solve our problems; we can only accomplish that by living within our ecological means. Thank you. Dan McCool