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A Washington Post story on Tuesday reported that Las Vegas water officials plan to tap into a vast network of aquifers in Nevada to support their ever developing city.

But Nevada farmers who depend on these aquifers won't stand for it.

Tom Firey, managing editor of Regulation magazine, sorts out the dispute in today's podcast.

Tell me what's been going on in Las Vegas.

Well, as you know, everyone in the country is moving to Las Vegas.

Apparently we're all going to live there in the next five or ten years.

But the city is exploding. It's been exploding in growth for at least a decade now.

And what that means is, of course, Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert so

they need water it's dry there's people moving in they need water to eat water for

food they need water for their lawns and they need water for industry and for retail.

So they need lots of water in a place where there isn't any and they're looking around the state trying to find some.

They're looking specifically to

northern Nevada where there is a lot of groundwater. They want to build an aqueduct

system to bring a lot of that water away from northern Nevada, which is

very sparsely populated, into southern Nevada, into Las Vegas, to feed this intense demand and it's

creating a lot of fights. Why are we building on inefficient land? Why are we

building in Las Vegas? That's a great question. We probably should interview the mayor. Part of it I guess is because

you know it has been for decades. It's great entertainment paradise. Well suddenly a lot you know a lot of

corporations have come in there is no longer the mob running Vegas.

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