Greetings!

Since 2000, much of our work to keep public land public has focused on Nevada, where Las Vegas moves ever outward across the Mojave Desert, swallowing up land and water.

To anyone with common sense, the very idea of this city in the desert is absurd. We all pay the price in paved-over public land, endangered species, and imperiled groundwater systems.

But such is Las Vegas' state of denial that this ecological disaster is treated as an inevitable trade-off for unquestioned, non-stop growth.

We would not have expected a local paper to tell the real story of land and water in Nevada, but the Las Vegas Sun has taken it on in a five-part series, "Quenching Las Vegas' Thirst."

Reporter Emily Green worked for more than a year to make sense of the intricate politics and the handful of players that oversees these issues.

(If you've seen the movie "Chinatown," the story will be eerily familiar).

We think you will find Parts 3 and 4 most compelling, but you can find the whole series here (scroll down the page).

Thanks, members and supporters, for your interest in these issues.-Janine