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~ . . REMARKS OF GOVERNOR GRANT SAWYER OF NEVADA CHAIRMAN, WESTERN GOVBilNOaS I CONFERENCE V WESTERN STATES WATER COUNCIL HARVEY 's RESOIn' .HOTEL STATELINE (IAI<E TAHOE), NEVADA AUGUST 3, 1965 ~ 6~~ ~ We are assembled here today to give thought and deliberation to the most important aspect of the economy and growth of not only the southwest, but the entire Western United States. Gathered here today is a greater assemblage of knowledge of water problems of the West than has ever been seated in one hall before. A great agricultural, industrial, and recreational economy has been developed in our Western States. Today we stand on the threshold of an expanding economy, greater than could possibly have been foreseen as late as ten years ago. However, you gentlemen know better than anyone one grave danger lies in the path of this expanding economy -- water. In many areas in the West our economy is being maintained by the depletion of our groundwater reserves. Those supplies are dwindling very rapidly at the present time. Great water supply projects have already been built in the West, but in nearly all cases they are local in scope. We now must take the next step, that is west-wide water development. There is an abundance of water available in this part of the country now wasting to the sea. It needs only storage and transportation facilities to move it from areas of surplus to areas of deficiency. Recently, several plans have been advanced to accomplish this movement of vast amounts of water. We in the water-poor states make loud noises about our desperate need for water and we promote regional water plans to meet those needs, sometimes without proper consideration of the political and public relation factors involved throughout the entire West. Justifiably, those living in areaS of abundant water supplies look with alarm upon any plan of any outsider to take the waters away from their areas. So the time has come for you as legislators, educators, lawyers, engineers, geologists and economists in the business of water conservation to conduct yourselves as statesmen and sit down around the table, work out the best plans to meet the needs of the entire West, not just you of the Southwest, Which we have heard so much about, not just you of the Northwest but the entire West. /more/