Some solutions to the looming global water crisis might be found in sharing the lessons learned by one city in the desert — the driest city in America, faced with depleted groundwater, constant expansion and only three inches of rain per year Once Was Water seeks to bring a fundamental understanding of the global water crisis to diverse audiences. Our goal is to build an awareness to some of the efforts -- technological, physical and political -- that are being made to better prepare us to live with the escalating water scarcity.

In the cultural wasteland of 1990s Las Vegas, a scrappy group of artists, poets, musicians, DJs, and entrepreneurs build an organic, thriving, and highly influential arts scene along one stretch of road, only to see it fade away by the turn of the 21st century.