Leaky dam key to city's water problems: But feds, wetlands won't allow quick fix

From KRQE-TV.com - A Las Vegas, N.M. dam that leaks millions of gallons of water every year needs to be fixed in order to solve the city’s escalating water woes. But even if city officials could come up with the millions it will take to permanently fix the problem, the federal government won’t let them make the repairs. That’s because Peterson Dam – one of the oldest operating dams in the state – has been leaking for more than two decades, said Ken Garcia, the city’s utility director. Those leaks, in turn, have created a wetlands area downstream and the federal government, which regulates wetlands, won’t let the city destroy them. And that is a huge problem because the city of Las Vegas now has only a two-month supply of water left. It is spending about $4 million on short-term fixes that should keep the taps flowing in the near future. So until the city figures out how to either preserve the wetlands or create a new wetlands in another area, nothing can be done to fix the leak. And that doesn’t sit well with either Mayor Ortiz or Gov. Susana Martinez. “We should not maintain a wetland that just happened to be created due to a leaky dam and then say, ‘People of Las Vegas you don’t have water and you’re not going to be allowed to fix that dam either,’ ” Martinez told News 13. “It makes no sense. We have to put the people of Las Vegas first.” Read more
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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Until someone stands up to the feds and tells them to shove it, the fed will continue to usurp powers that were not intended to be in their repetoire. The Feds have absolutely NO AUTHORITY within state borders. There is no constitutional authority for wetlands designations or any of the other myriad of laws the government has illegally passed. Each state has the authority to manage every ounce of everything that occurs within its borders.
The fed has no legitimate authority. Most politicians fear the loss of federal funds (our tax dollars) but ALL expenditures by the fed that are not Union-wide are unconstitutional. Read Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 1. It ssays the general Welfare of the United States, not the general welfare of individuals or individual States. Even Pres Grant understood this truth. Why don't we? Because WE have been educated in government controlled schools and WE have had the truth withheld so that THEY can control everyone and everything.

We need someone with cajones.

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