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The Chosen One - Las Vegas Sun <br />Page 5 of 10 <br />But for those who stayed, as Steve Wynn went from his tropical lagoon to grand luxe phase, Las Vegas meant <br />union catering jobs, cheap housing and low taxes. <br />Politicians who tilt at their constituents' prosperity, or even more perilously at that of Las Vegas developers, <br />should ask state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus what happened after she proposed putting a ring around <br />growth in Las Vegas. (She was ridiculed for mistaking Las Vegas for that communist enclave, Portland, Ore., <br />then defeated for the governorship by Jim Gibbons.) <br />But Mulroy the lobbyist survived taking water guarantees away from builders by persuading them that their <br />fortunes would come by taking risks. <br />This was her "New Paradigm," and it went like this: With Mulroy at the water company and Bunker and a <br />number of her staff on the river commission, Las Vegas would just keep building above and beyond the capacity <br />of its river allocation. <br />It was a Las Vegas -sized dare. The logic: Defy the limits under Nevada's Colorado River allocation. Dare the <br />six other states on the Colorado River, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and its overseer the Interior secretary to <br />not give them more water. <br />As the New Paradigm was unveiled in the press, a spokesman for Nevada's Colorado River Commission even <br />announced, "I say the federal government will never let Nevada go dry." <br />The buffaloes put down their newspapers at the sheer nerve of it. There was only one place from which Nevada <br />could get more Colorado River water. From California. <br />If they failed, they still had the ground water applications in rural Nevada. <br />Water is fuel. Without it, runaway growth across the Southwest would not be possible. To witness what cheap, <br />federally subsidized water out of the Colorado River can do, look at the urbanization of Southern California, <br />served by the Metropolitan Water District. Where once they grew oranges, lemons and limes, they now grow <br />houses and freeways. <br />None of it was possible on the roughly 500,000 acre -feet of Colorado River water left over for Southern <br />California cities after farmers took their 3.85 million- acre -foot share. It was possible only because California <br />was enjoying water unclaimed by the four Northern Basin states — New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and <br />Utah. The Metropolitan Water District proved unmatched in the Lower Basin in glomming onto the surplus, as <br />much as 800,000 acre -feet a year. <br />Combined with water drawn from the Sierra and another vast siphon from Sacramento to Los Angeles, the <br />endless suburbs of Southern California were sucking up so much water that the runoff into the Pacific from lawn <br />sprinklers and car washing alone reached an estimated 1 million acre -feet a year. <br />That was more than three times the Colorado River allocation for all of Southern Nevada, enough potable water <br />for 2 million families, rushing through the gutters of greater Los Angeles and sweeping cigarette butts and <br />motor oil out to sea. <br />Nevada wanted what California was wasting, so, Bunker says, "we had to do some surgery." <br />In 1992, that meant lobbying new Clinton Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, the former governor of Arizona. <br />Before taking office, Babbitt had been so opposed to Las Vegas' ground -water applications that he had offered <br />legal advice to rural Nevadans protesting the pipeline. <br />But like any Arizonan, Babbitt was also a natural ally of Las Vegas in any drive to curb California excess. <br />By the time Babbitt left office in 2001, Nevada had been so successful in bringing California's draw on the river <br />http: / /www.lasvegassun.com/news /2008 /jun/08 /chosen -one/ 6/17/2008 <br />