Who Should Get Vegas' Sewage?

20 June 2005 - 9:00am

As Las Vegas grows, the city is sending more pollutants into Lake Mead, the source of drinking water for millions in the West.

"With each new subdivision in the southern Nevada desert, more wastewater and urban runoff drains into Mead, a sparkling blue national recreation area but also the receptacle for all of metropolitan Las Vegas' treated sewage.A wastewater coalition is proposing ... a massive pipeline that would take most of the effluent from a wash that now empties into a shallow bay and instead dump it directly into the cold depths of the lake closer to Hoover Dam... But some experts fear the pipeline project could simply export the pollution threat out of Mead to the lower Colorado River, where Southern California and Arizona draw water."

Source: The Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2005
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