Water an issue as Nev. lures manufacturing firms
By Megan Messerly, Las Vegas Sun
When electric car company Faraday Future was thinking of building a manufacturing plant in Southern Nevada, it needed water.
Its operation would require 630 acre-feet of water, or about the amount it takes to water one golf course, said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. With Faraday projected to directly create 4,500 jobs, the calculation was easy for officials.
Allocating water rights was one of the subjects investigated by a state panel of experts last year, who sent a list of short-term and long-term recommendations for dealing with the drought and Nevada’s water supply to Gov. Brian Sandoval in November.
The panel’s chairman, Leo Drozdoff, director of the state department of conservation and natural resources, said the panel was important in bringing stakeholders together to try to find common ground. Some of the recommendations could come before the Nevada Legislature in 2017.