Think
Water Wise By Brian Sodoma
Things have clearly changed
t’s easy to forget that, thanks to a sizeable aquifer beneath it, Las Vegas was once a water-abundant green oasis with lush meadows and springs. Paleontologists in the area have even found Las Vegas’ rock layers give evidence of a green and wet landscape that supported bison, camels, and ground sloth dating as far back as 500,000 years.
Flash forward to the last 200 years, human activity shifted from settlers passing through town for a water respite in the 1800s to more of us taking up permanent residence in a place becoming less green and wet, and more unsustainable for human survival. But even more recently, we convinced ourselves there was still plenty of water. In the 1950s, our population of roughly 40,000 feasted on 40,000 acre-feet annually of water supplied by that aquifer, about eight times
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