Extended Interview

This interview has not been edited for content.

Interviewer:  Tell me if it's a good idea for Las Vegas to get access to water in this area.

Merle Rawlings:  We have been in the midst of a seven-year drought in our area, North Snake Valley and Western Utah.  Last year when there were officials from the Southern Nevada Water Authority coming to visit us, we happened to have some good snow pack on the mountains and the first time in seven years.  As you noticed, perhaps driving into this afternoon our mountains don't have very much snow on them this year.  The strangest thing—we haven't had people from Southern Nevada Water Authority flying over and noticing.  There is no snow up there to be recharged into our aquifer.  If we had surplus water the issue would be entirely different.  We don't have surplus water.  Our wells are dropping and certainly our springs are drying up.  The aquifer that they propose to pump from is just not there.  If they pump 180,000 acre feet per year proposed for at least seventy years, there won't be anything here but an Owens Valley.  We happen to be a wind tunnel, this Snake Valley area and Spring Valley also, and the dust from our area will be just like the dust in Owens Valley except it's going to go visit Southern Nevada and Northern Utah.

Interviewer:  Do you trust the SNWA?

Merle Rawlings:  I trust the Water Authority to do what's right in the sight of their own eyes, for their constituents, and that could be very harmful to Snake Valley and Spring Valley, all of Eastern Nevada and Western Utah.  It could be very difficult for us, but I trust them to do what they say they're going to do, and that's take our water if they possibly can.