Except for your blood pressure, cholesterol and temperature during a high fever, when you hear that something is going down, that’s generally not a good sign.

For 14 long drought years the water levels at Lake Mead, a reservoir that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas water supply, has been going down, down, down and fortunately it hasn’t hit rock bottom…….yet.

Mr. Tim Barnett is a marine physicist at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and co-author of two reports about dwindling Western water resources. His research concluded that without massive cutbacks in water use, Lake Mead had a 50% chance of deteriorating to “dead pool” by 2036. That’s the level at which the reservoir’s surface drops beneath Las Vegas’ lowest water intake.

Climate scientists have long pointed to the Southwest as one of the places in the U.S. that is most vulnerable to global warming impacts, especially drought…….Jeff Goodell

Las Vegas was first settled for its various springs. These springs allowed it to be an oasis in the desert. Although those springs have decades since run dry, water is still the most import resource to Las Vegas and the dry Southwest.

The red hot crisis stems from the Las Vegas’s complete reliance on Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, which was created by the Hoover Dam in 1936. Afterwards it took six years to fill completely.

It’s not just about the drought.

A large part of the problem originates from the fact that Las Vegas’s population has grown from 400,000 to two million and Lake Mead has slowly been drained of four trillion gallons of water and is now well under half full.

The once proud lake looks as though someone has removed its bath tub plug.

The female wrestling industry understandably loves Las Vegas with their abundance of beautiful dancers and dynamic entertainers. It’s a fantastic venue for events and is home to many of our top female submission wrestlers. Compared to other regions where there is a sizable pool of female submission wrestlers like the San Francisco bay area, the cost of living is much lower.

Las Vegas is also known worldwide for mastering the art of illusion but perhaps the greatest illusion was this notion that there was an endless water supply.

After years of recession, the building industry is starting to make a come-back but even that good news comes with a brown tub ring. Where are all of these new residents going to get their water?

Comparisons to other regions sheds light on why with new growth there were always going to be a problem anyway. First off, even in a great year Las Vegas gets just four inches of rain. In the first four months of 2014 there was just 0.31 of an inch.

The Average yearly rainfall in Seattle is 36.2 inches, compared to 19.5 inches in San Francisco, 34.5 in Chicago, 39 inches in Washington, DC and surprisingly 40.3 inches in New York City.

Las Vegas still uses 219 gallons of water per person per day, one of the highest figures in America. Most of that water is used to sprinkle golf courses, parks and lawns. By contrast in San Francisco the figure is just 49 gallons.

Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer.…………John Wesley Powell

Here are some possible solutions and what is being done in an attempt to stem the tide.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has declared war on grass, paying homeowners to remove it from their gardens at the rate of $1.50 per square foot. So far 165 million square feet of turf has been destroyed. Laid end to end in an 18-inch strip it would stretch 90 per cent of the way around the Earth.

At first glance some might focus on the hotel industry with an eye towards the Bellagio which has tourists gasping in amazement as fountains shoot 500 feet of water into the air, performing a spectacular dance in time to the music of Frank Sinatra and other illustrious crooners.

That’s not remotely the problem. The Vegas Strip now uses only seven per cent of the city’s water while accounting for 70 per cent of its economy.

All the water from sinks and showers in hotel rooms is recycled and even water from some lavatories ends up treated and back in Lake Mead. Some hotels automatically only wash bedroom linen once every two days, and restaurants have stopped serving glasses of water unless requested to do so.

While it may look extravagant the Bellagio fountain does not in fact use water from Lake Mead, instead being filled from an underground lake on the hotel’s land which is undrinkable anyway.

One proposal is for landlocked Nevada to pay billions of dollars to build solar-powered desalination plants in the Pacific off Mexico, taking Mexico’s share of Colorado River water in exchange.

Southern Nevada Water Authority chief John Entsminger is still optimistic.

In an interview with reviewjournal.com he explained that the community is uniquely positioned to outlast even the worst decline in Lake Mead because of the valley’s proximity to the reservoir, which provides 90 percent of the local water supply.

The authority is already building a new intake to draw water from the deepest part of the lake. At an estimated cost of $817 million, that important project goes online a little over a year from now with the expectation that it will protect the valley’s water supply even if the lake falls another 80 feet.

Another option is for the community to build a new pump station at a cost of at least $300 million that would enable the new intake to keep drawing water from the lake at “dead pool,” roughly 180 feet down from the present level, a point too low for water to be released downstream through Hoover Dam.

If casinos and developers continue to push growth, and critics say lawmakers often seem to lack the willpower to draw the line, a diamond in the desert built upon illusion, luck and big dreams may have to finally wake up.

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Sources: brainyquote.com, Wikipedia, fciwomenswrestling.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com, FCI Elite Competitor, https://femcompetitor.com, photos thank you Wikimedia Commons.

http://www.seattle.gov/oir/datasheet/quality.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10932785/The-race-to-stop-Las-Vegas-from-running-dry.html

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/water-environment/water-official-vegas-not-running-dry

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-las-vegas-drought-20140421-story.html#page=1

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/topics/water/