Robert B. Griffith Water Project (Formerly Southern Nevada Water Project)

摘要

Although Las Vegas had been a way-station and small agricultural community since the Nineteenth Century, its potential had not even been imagined until Lake Mead offered the promise of an inexhaustible supply of water. Las Vegas was at first dependent on southern Nevadas rich underground aquifer, but it became quickly apparent in the 1950s that this water source would not be able to keep up with the development and growth anticipated in the postwar era. Clark County officials sought assistance from the Federal government to develop a system of water transport from Lake Mead to the thirsty, growing metropolis of Las Vegas. The Bureau of Reclamation built the pumping plant and distribution system, while the county agreed to built the treatment plant and to pay for the construction costs and water pumped from the reservoir. Completed in the early 1980s and subsequently improved and expanded by Reclamation in partnership with the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the Robert B. Griffith Water Project (before 1982 known as the Southern Nevada Water Project) supplies water to Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, and Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The history of the project says much about the increasing urbanization of the American West and of the fundamental role of water in its future developments.