Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to be here today to discuss a subject which comes up quite often: growth and water. There exists a commonly held myth in some of the rapidly growing areas of the southwest that growth can and should be controlled through the measured allocation of water. Indeed, we have all seen the national news magazine programs and the major newspaper articles which tell a story of how Las Vegas is experiencing blockbuster growth without any regard for its most finite resource, water. Well, I am here to tell a little different story. As explained to you by Commissioner Kincaid, this community has accomplished water management reforms which other states only talk about.
Water and Growth
First, I would like to debunk the notion that you can control growth with water. In 1973, the Department of the Interior had it right when it published the following statement:
"According to a study prepared for the National Water Commission, water development and regional economic growth are not necessarily connected. Ample water supplies for agriculture and/or municipal-industrial use, the existence of water based recreational resources, the availability of low cost hydroelectric power etc., etc., do not provide in and of themselves a sufficient condition for economic growth. Furthermore, in some situations they may not even be necessarily conditions for such growth to occur.
...Accessibility to major markets, availability of quality labor supply, transportation costs and alternatives, and climate all play a role in establishing conditions favorable to growth. ...The fact that an ample water supply may not, under certain conditions, be necessary for growth is indicated by the rapid rate of economic growth in certain so called ‘water short' areas of the west and southwest."
In other words, people do not follow water; rather, water tends to follow people. Our own experience at the Las Vegas Valley Water District is an excellent example of this fact. Many will recall that in 1991, after several years of explosive growth in population and water deliveries to our customers, we reached a point where our current contract for Colorado River water was fully committed. On February 14, 1991, the Board of the Water District reached the difficult decision that it could no longer issue "will serve" water commitment letters to developers and it imposed a "temporary suspension of new commitments for water" until such time as additional water resources could be obtained to meet new commitments.
As you can appreciate, this suspension was very controversial and many in the community called upon us to continue making new commitments based upon an expectation that we could get additional resources. In this town that is called "betting on the come". This course is exactly what California has done in recent years to its detriment. While we were determined that we could negotiate a new contract for more Colorado River return flow water from the Secretary of the Interior, both the timing and the amount was at issue. Ultimately, after many months a contract for Nevada's final allocation of Colorado River water was signed and the suspension was lifted.
The suspension of water commitments lasted from February 1991 until March 1992, just over one year. One might expect that with such a significant time period where no new water was available, that growth would slow down. Well guess what? For the nine years from 1989 to 1998, the total population increased by 67% and our water use increased by 52%. During the one year period of the suspension and the year that followed, there was no appreciable drop in population growth or water deliveries. And it's important to remember that without our excellent conservation results, those water use numbers would have been even higher. What happened?
Supply and Demand
In a market economy, the law of supply and demand rules. When the supply drops and the demand remains constant or increases, the value of the commodity increases and the need to find creative, cooperative solutions with your neighbors becomes an imperative. Yes, scarcity challenges the status quo. Shared supplies, like the Colorado River, that in an era of abundance can be managed as distinct and separate pieces must be viewed from their totality. Success, just as it has been proven in the creation of a global economy, rests in creating larger interlocked hydro commons. As utopian as this may sound to some, the creation of the Arizona Water Bank and the opportunity that Nevada has to share in that storage capacity bear witness to the fact that the impossible is achievable when the need to do so is great enough.
Conclusion
Water cannot and should not be viewed by local, regional or federal elected officials as a mechanism to control or manage growth. It is a vital resource that is required to sustain life and therefore people will always find a way to obtain it, even if it means the dissolution of tried and true paradigms. Using water as a tool to accomplish a livable community would be like trying to sculpt the David with a chain saw or paint the Mona Lisa with spray paint. I want to commend the locally elected officials in this community for their recognition of this reality. Growth management is an important issue which must be addressed through more precise, direct, local tools such as regional planning, parks and trails, ordinances to preserve open space, common sense zoning and housing density limits, and agreements with the private sector for master planned communities which set aside land, in advance, for the important needs of the public. This is SmartGrowth.