Kirk Stowers has a caliche story. Not because he’s a geologist, which he is — with the consulting firm Broadbent & Associates — but thanks to his dad. It was 1973, and his family had just arrived from Illinois. “My father had been led to believe that in order for a family to appreciate living in Southern Nevada, a swimming pool was going to be necessary in our backyard,” Stowers recalls. A contractor was hired and began to dig. “We wanted an eight-foot pool, and at about six feet they ran into caliche.” Full stop. That’ll be $10,000 extra, they said.
