LAS VEGAS-It’s no secret that the West is running out of water.

Perhaps the best evidence of this problem lies in stark juxtaposition across a stretch of desert surrounding Las Vegas.

As my wife and I planned our route from Tucson, Ariz., to California for the #thirstywest Slate series, there were a couple of stopovers I wanted to make along the way. This short drive was one of them.

Within the span of a single afternoon, it’s possible to witness the past, present, and future of water issues in the West. We accomplished this by driving past the Hoover Dam, through Las Vegas, and on into California via Death Valley.

First, the past:

The Hoover Dam was the biggest civil engineering project in U.S. history, famously constructed in the midst of the Great Depression to tame the Colorado River, provide electricity, and create Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country. Now, climate change is starting to make it obsolete.

Lake Mead provides 90 percent of the water to the once-again booming city of Las Vegas, as well as indirectly to Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and agricultural areas downstream via diversions from the Colorado River. As the result of an ongoing multiyear drought, this giant lake […]