Question of the Day - 20 August 2017

It could, but the situation would have to be sufficiently dire to bring such a scenario into likelihood.

Desalination was pioneered by Greek sailors in the fourth century B.C. who removed the salt from sea water by boiling it. With three large desalination plants, Israel gets at least a plurality (estimates run from 25% to 55%) of its drinking water from desalination. The average monthly water bill there is $30, compared to $47 in Las Vegas. However, it hasn't, generally speaking, fared well in the U.S., even as it's flourished overseas. 

A major desalination plant has just been completed in Carlsbad, California, of which great things are expected, albeit just for the San Diego area. It was completed in the teeth of fierce opposition from environmentalists.

“It’s just not a good option from a cost and energy standpoint,” said California Coastal Alliance Executive Director Sara Aminzadeh, referring to the 50,000-kilowatt-per-acre-foot energy consumption required to deliver salt-free water to consumers. There are also concerns that aquatic larvae will get impinged against the desalination intakes, adversely affecting fish stocks.

California is presently considering as many as 15 desalination plants, the next one to be built in Huntington Beach (a favorite hangout of LVA Publisher Anthony Curtis). A defunct plant in Santa Barbara may be revived, too.

Significantly, no one in California is offering to share all this reclaimed water with Nevada. The Silver State would be expected to foot part of the cost for one or more plants, a billion dollars a pop. And once you get the plant built and merrily pumping away, the problems are just beginning.

Divvying up the cost of the pipeline (which California would surely want to tap as it moves inland) would have to be negotiated by the two state governments, as would the proportion of water allocated to each state. And the decades-long antagonism over Lake Tahoe water, which the states share, doesn't bode well for an easy agreement. Then would come the cost of building the pipeline itself, which could be as much as $3.6 million a mile. 

If, per your suggestion, one built a desalination plant on the Gulf of Mexico and ran its output through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, the costs and political considerations multiply. Once each of those states gets its tranche of water (necessitating negotiations between four states together) it’s an open question whether there would be enough H2O left to make a substantial impact on Sin City’s needs. The Carlsbad plant pumps 100 million gallons a day, but a comparable facility destined for Lake Mead would probably have much of that siphoned off as it travels from state to state.

All of which helps explain why Las Vegas relies on water reclamation and pumping the deepest depths of Lake Mead: It’s simpler, more-cost efficient, and doesn’t involve dickering with neighboring states for each glass of water.

Barring a water shortage that desperately affects the desert Southwest (especially California), we're unlikely to see a creative solution like yours brought to the bargaining table.