Picture the shoe on the other foot. Say Utah was being slowly poisoned by airborne mercury from Nevada's vast gold mines, and that we were worried about our children's health under the onslaught of heavy metal falling from the sky.
Would Nevada show the appropriate level of concern?
We already have the answer. We are downwind of a huge plume of mercury from the Nevada gold belt. The Great Salt Lake has the biggest levels of mercury of any major body of water on the continent, and the emerging data points to widespread contamination of Utah's waterways and atmosphere.
Because the data is new and raw, Nevada is in denial, and our own leaders have not faced the gravity of the situation.
Similarly, the impacts of pumping 50,000 acre-feet per year of groundwater from the Snake Valley cannot be exactly known, but the history of such diversions is not happy. The rape of Owens Valley by Los Angeles or the flooding of Glen Canyon by Lake Powell each come to mind.
Like the Snake Valley, these were places that few knew until they were gone. The Snake Valley is indeed a gem. Its desiccation in favor of more Las Vegas would be tragic.
Fifty thousand acre-feet of water is enough to cover 78 square miles of land with a foot of water each year. That's more land than Utah managed to urbanize in the first 100 years of its history.
If such a "sustainable" aquifer exists in the heart of the Great Basin, much of it in Utah, shouldn't we conserve Utah's portion for our own future? The Wasatch Front is twice as close to the aquifer as Las Vegas. Are casinos and Vegas-style urban sprawl more important than the birthright of our children and grandchildren?
As our lakes and rivers fill with Nevada's mercury, the swimming pools and fountains of Las Vegas will fill with Utah's water. That's some deal.
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* MCKAY EDWARDS is an urban planner and builder and lives in Salt Lake City.
