By the Waters of Babylon...

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 
--Psalm 137:1-2

Human history has been intertwined with water. Until the past 200 years waterways have been the chief highways for travel. For this reason, all the world's major cities were located on rivers or lakes. Paris, London, Cairo, Moscow, Rome, New York, Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Delhi. Even those adjacent to oceans were established at the mouths of freshwater rivers and bays.

Railroads changed this. 

As a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln became involved in a legal dispute involving a railroad bridge being built over a river. If the bridge were built, it would block the riverboats traveling on that liquid waterway. After much study, Lincoln saw that railroads were the future. Years later, he became an advocate for the Transcontinental Railroad project that opened up the West, signing into law the Pacific Railway Act of 1862.

Railroads enabled the construction of major cities in all manner of locales. Rivers were no longer needed for the mass transport of good. 

Las Vegas, founded in 1905 along the railroad line that ran from L.A. to Salt Lake City, is perhaps the most famous such city of our time. There were natural springs in the vicinity, water was scarce in the desert there. The lack of power and water to support the scale to which it has grown now was unimaginable then. 

The first significant growth of Las Vegas came with the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, which brought an influx of workers. In 1931, Nevada legalized gambling, which laid the foundation for "Sin City" to become a major gambling hub. The opening of the El Rancho Vegas in 1941 marked the beginning of the Strip, the city’s famous boulevard lined with casinos and resorts.

I first visited the city in the early 90s when the population had just exceeded a million. Complaints about road congestion were in the news. This didn't stop people from coming. They came from all over the world. Today there is a larger concern as the city surpasses three million inhabitants and struggles with its water and energy needs.

The past few years Las Vegas had been dealing with water shortages due to low water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are fed by the Colorado River. In 2021, the Secretary of the Interior declared a shortage on the Colorado River, which reduced the amount of water available to Nevada and other users in 2022. In 2022, the lakes reached record lows, and the federal government warned that some states, including Nevada, might need to make significant cutbacks.

This past year when the rains came the lakes began filling up again, but the drought did reveal the region's vulnerability. Currently, the city (and surroundings) uses 400,000 acre-feet of water, 90% of it from the Colorado River.

Las Vegas, like many cities, has continuously adapted to its environment, finding ways to grow and thrive against the odds. The fluctuating levels of Lake Mead serve as a metaphor for the city's—and humanity's—resilience and adaptability. As we face an uncertain future, Las Vegas reminds us of our ability to innovate and adapt, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Our history with water may be complex, but it is also a story of survival, resourcefulness, and hope.

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