Print View From: Naomi Franklin To: Date: Tuesday - August 25, 2009 2:31 PM Subject: NO GO for Snake Valley Water Agreement! Utah Dept. of Natural Resources Division of Water Rights 1594 West North Temple, suite 220 Salt Lake City, Ut 84114 The Snake Valley Water Agreement between Utah and Nevada is NO GO! Water in the West (and on Earth) is in short supply---and yet undervalued. We need to cherish our water, increase its cost, use it with utmost care. The water demands of thousands of new homes must be calculated against our present and future water availability. The water under dispute in the Snake Valley is not our water to negotiate. It is not present run-off from our mountains, but an underground aquifer of ancient water, a priceless reserve that may be replenished only at a very slow rate. We must not suck the life-blood from the earth in a thoughtless rush to economic growth. With great care and restraint we may be able to provide for our present population. We cannot expand indefinitely our numbers, nor our consumables, nor our polluting wastes. Paraphrasing Professor Dan McCool (interviewed by Doug Fabrizio 8/21/9, on KUED's "Utah Now"), finite resources do not provide for infinite growth. The "Snake Valley Water Agreement", open to public comment until 9/30/9, was devised in secrecy by the Utah Division of Natural Resources and the Southern Nevada Water Authority (8/15/09 SL Tribune, Patty Henetz). SNWA may already have started a water pipeline from Las Vegas towards the Snake Valley. Once such a pipeline (estimated to cost 3 billion dollars) is built, you can bet, as said Prof. McCool, that it will never be allowed to run dry. Desertification of Utah will not weigh in. The pipeline will be financed by new water hook-ups in Las Vegas, i.e. it is designed to allow more home construction, more growth, in a place destined for disaster by not-so-far-off water depletion. The Agreement must NOT be agreed to. The pipeline should be cut off at the knees. Then the ancient waters will endure, to be blessed by generations to come. Naomi Franklin 1411 Utah St #4 Salt Lake City, UT 84104 801-974-5396