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Opinion
Nov. 04, 2007
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

GEOFF SCHUMACHER: It's past time to dig up every lawn

GEOFF SCHUMACHER
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Las Vegas in a nutshell: A Hummer sporting a specialty license plate urging us to "Protect Lake Tahoe."

When it comes to some of the big political questions -- the environment, education, transportation among them -- Las Vegas is a seriously confused place.

All of us here know that we live in one of the world's driest climates. And surely most of us realize that conserving water is an increasingly important thing to do here. Yet many Southern Nevadans thumb their noses at the notion of reducing water use.

Las Vegas should be ashamed that it has the highest per-capita rate of urban water consumption in the West. We are just terrible at the one thing that we -- better than anyone except maybe the Bedouins in the Sahara Desert -- should be committed to doing.

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    • The Las Vegas Valley Water District boasts, with some justification, that its turf-removal incentive program has eliminated vast swaths of water-guzzling lawns. Many businesses and homeowners (including this writer) have taken advantage of this program, which makes it very affordable to convert your yard from grass to xeriscape.

    But the program is voluntary. If you like your lawn, you can keep it -- and keep drenching it with gallons upon gallons of water.

    Drive around Las Vegas and it doesn't take long to notice the large numbers of businesses and homeowners that have no interest in eliminating turf and defiantly flout the rules about when and how much to water.

    "I live in the very aptly named Green Valley, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel," says Launce Rake, spokesman for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "I take national reporters out and show them acre after acre after acre of emerald-green eye candy. In August, I took out a Reuters reporter. It's noon, it's 110 degrees out and, in violation of the rules, there are irrigation systems going full blast. It's so ridiculously easy to find examples of water waste all over the valley."

    I've noticed that wealthy homeowners seem to care the least about conserving water. Many weekday mornings, I drive through the upscale neighborhood near Rancho and Alta drives. Grass is the dominant landscape feature. One large house boasts a lush lawn almost the size of a football field. It looks like the kind of place where the Kennedy family would play a game of touch football. Of course, the Kennedys played their famous touch football games in Massachusetts, not the Mojave Desert.

    Perhaps it's purely an economic issue: Wealthy folks can afford to pay the higher water rates charged to heavy users. But I suspect there's something more to it: a conscious decision that aesthetics trumps the community's greater good.

    Should local property owners -- commercial and residential -- be required to dig up their lawns? I think so. Water is a vital public resource in a growing desert city, and its allocation should not be left to the whims of the selfish, ignorant or defiant.

    But clearly I am a voice in the wilderness on this issue. Have you heard any local official ever make such a suggestion? Me neither.

    Rake points out a painful irony associated with local water conservation efforts, what he calls a "fiscal glitch." When the Las Vegas Valley Water District enacted more stringent conservation measures a few years ago, people stopped using so much water. A good thing, right? Sure, but the side effect was that the water district's revenues -- based on water consumption -- plummeted.

    "The water district as a legal entity is running something like a $20 million deficit," Rake says. "And as a public agency, they are required to balance their books. It's a ridiculous situation."

    As a result, one has to wonder whether the water district really has its heart in expanding water conservation efforts. Under the current structure, conservation is bad for the agency's bottom line.

    But there's more to the story. The water district's sister agency, the Southern Nevada Water Authority -- run by the same people -- has a different agenda. Its primary mission is to find new water resources to feed the Las Vegas growth machine. The water authority is spending tens of millions on lobbyists and marketing campaigns to make sure it is allowed to proceed with plans to build a pipeline to pump groundwater from rural Nevada.

    Regardless of what you think of the pipeline project, the fact that many millions of dollars are being allocated to the project instead of expanding conservation efforts in the valley is worthy of discussion.

    So, will my idea of requiring property owners to dig up their lawns ever come to pass?

    "I think everyone has to know that is coming sometime," Rake says.

    If so, it's not likely to be a proactive measure. It will happen only when this growing community taps out its available resources, which could occur sooner than expected if the eight-year Western drought persists. At some point, we will be forced to react in severe ways, generating anger, conflict and hardships that could have been avoided if we had been more forward-looking.

    For those unwilling to cross the line into forced lawn removal, other measures could be enacted. A new report from the Pacific Institute and Western Resource Advocates argues that Las Vegas could achieve 40 percent more conservation inside single-family homes and 30 percent more in hotel-casinos by installing water-efficient fixtures and appliances.

    "Las Vegas has implemented only a small fraction of the various water-efficiency programs being used successfully throughout the western U.S.," the report states. "This is one reason Las Vegas residents use significantly more water per person, both indoors and outdoors, than residents of Tucson, Albuquerque, Los Angeles and other arid and semi-arid U.S. cities."

    It's obvious, I think, that the same type of financial incentives offered by the water district for turf removal could be offered for replacing indoor water fixtures.

    Finally, the water district should increase the financial pinch for big water wasters. Clearly, the high-volume rates, although increased fairly recently, need to be a lot higher to persuade property owners to get with the program.

    Our single-minded addiction to growth has crippled our ability to think clearly on many issues. Water conservation should be a no-brainer in a place like Las Vegas, yet somehow it's gotten all gunked up in the competing priorities of casinos, developers, homeowners and political agencies.

    And thus: a Hummer with a "Protect Lake Tahoe" license plate.

    Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@ reviewjournal.com) is Stephens Media's director of community publications. He is the author of "Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas" and, coming in February, "Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue." His column appears Sunday.



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    Tim Kieper wrote on November 09, 2007 04:31 AM: It seems to me that the municipalities are the worst offenders of over watering. I live in Summerlin and the watering is done every day of the year on the public grounds. Watering goes on the sidewalks, streets, and the weeds on the median stip. One day of watering likely uses more water than a single person would use in a lifetime. What kind of example does that set for the citizens when the government ( again ! )exempts itself from the same rules that govern the "little people" ?


    Terry Marasco wrote on November 04, 2007 04:26 PM: SNWA needs to find new leadership that will take advantage of the water at its feet, and mend the divisive relationship Ms. Mulroy has created between rural and urban Nevadans. The momentum and leadership SNWA needs to bring Nevadans together and sustain the growth of both rural and urban Nevada requires a profound change.

    We need skilled negotiators, skilled consensus builders, and skilled water managers at SNWA who seek to apply the various advanced technologies and methodologies to reach solutions not only for Las Vegas but the intermountain west. Las Vegas and many western cities experiencing growth pains vis-à-vis the scarcity of water can grow. But Nevada needs water managers who view each other as colleagues on a team seeking to solve the big picture water issues so that all states and cities manage their water responsibly to sustain their growth.


    Outlander wrote on November 04, 2007 02:36 PM: In April, I spent a night in a Las Vegas motel and then flew out of McCarren the next morning. During my short stay, I observed mid-day watering at the motel, a high volume flushing toilet and high volume shower head in my motel room, and a spicket on the coffee machine in the lobby for hot water, to warm up your styrofoam cup before putting coffee in it.
    At the airport, I noticed a constantly flushing toilet that I reported to two different maintenance staff. Neither went to a phone, or spoke to another person after receiving my report. The second staff person said they already knew about it, as it had been flushing since yesterday morning. I looked down on Las Vegas commercial and residential areas, with several swimming pools per block, none of which appeared to be covered to reduce evaporation and heat loss. I didn't see any swimmers in those pools. No fish, either. What's that about?
    I will say, too, that I have been driving to, and through, Las Vegas several times a year for 50 years. The climate in Las Vegas has changed, I assume because of the fountains, ponds, pools, green grassy expanses, and water traps on numerous golf courses. The humidity is higher, making the hot feel hotter (and the chill on a windy winter day feel colder). That is yet another indication that a HUGE amount of water, gray or clean and clear, is lost to evaporation year around.
    With major water shortages experienced nation-wide, we need to learn a new way to live, mandatorily conserving water in all our living and working spaces.
    Shame on you, SNWA.


    BH wrote on November 04, 2007 12:23 PM: Sorry I only posted once I have no idea why the posting was duplicated. Sometimes double sonetimes nothing will post!


    BH wrote on November 04, 2007 12:20 PM: What amazes me is that people fail to recognize there is a real drought and water shortage. The take a look at Lake Mead although it is low and believe there is plenty of water. Judging the amount of water there by the surface is deceiving since the lake is more like a snow cone cup. The surface area is not a reliable measure of how much usable water is available.



    As long as people moving here want to make Las Vegas look like back home the water supply will continue to waste away. If they like back home so much they should move back. This is the Desert get used to it or leave. And take your grass with you.




    BH wrote on November 04, 2007 12:20 PM: What amazes me is that people fail to recognize there is a real drought and water shortage. The take a look at Lake Mead although it is low and believe there is plenty of water. Judging the amount of water there by the surface is deceiving since the lake is more like a snow cone cup. The surface area is not a reliable measure of how much usable water is available.

    As long as people moving here want to make Las Vegas look like back home the water supply will continue to waste away. If they like back home so much they should move back. This is the Desert get used to it or leave. And take your grass with you.


    E wrote on November 04, 2007 11:52 AM: Schumacher makes some good points. We need to focus on conservation and especially on residential watering, where something like 70 percent of the valley's water is spent. That water is lost to evaporation and cannot be reclaimed as household water is.

    Those who want to target the hotels would be wrong. The hotels make up a much less significant fraction of the water use and provide the primary economic engine for the valley.

    Also, in we're going to look at the regional picture, we need to be more responsible in agriculture. Something like 90+ percent of Colorado River water goes to desert agriculture. Some of that is useful, but I'm not sure we need rice paddies in Southern California or so many alfalfa fields in the Mojave.

    And stop the pipeline project, please.


    StayingGreengrass wrote on November 04, 2007 11:23 AM: The sun shines here 99% of the time. Why is it that home builders have not been given approval based on using solar energy. Why is it that growth has not been limited. You never hear talk of either issue. The all mighty dollar is more important. The people making money hand over fist continue to approve an ever increasing number of water users to diminish our finite supply.

    We live in the desert and the "drought" never gets much better. We get a few inches of rainfall in a good year and just a couple in a bad year. True concern for conservation should come with a realization that we cannot keep growing at the pace we are.

    So, as a 50 year resident who enjoys the look of my green lawn, I am keeping it. Until I hear someone in power or with the Water district say there should be a building moratorium and all new homes will be solar -- I don't believe they are really committed to change and they should stop talking conservation because they aren't serious about it.


    BR wrote on November 04, 2007 10:28 AM: OK Schumacher, tell us about your yard, water consumption, and sprinkler systems. Such rabid liberals as you preach but rarely practice.


    Wayne D. wrote on November 04, 2007 08:30 AM: In the older neighborhoods, residents are more conservation conscious than the Summerlin Residents. Mainly, because the aesthetics of a green lawn is outweighed by it's monthly cost, and imposing high fines for watering on the WRONG DAY. But, drive through the Hillpoint and Hillcenter area of Summerlin any time of the day in either the summer or the winter, and see the sprinklers saturate the already marshy decorative grass and landscaping. And, just how many trees does an area need per square mile. Summerlin is trying to lure exCali retirees by creating an atmosphere of lush, garden-like greenery. In some areas, the water is set to saturate several times a day, to maintain that image. Vegas is NOT California. We are a goddamn Desert. Accept it people. Where are the politicians on this issue? Hiding as usual, with their kickbacks in the bank. Instead, lets clamp down even tighter on the residents already squeezing the hose, by imposing ridiculous fines on them, and look the other way for the Hotels with fountain displays and mini lakes, Golf Courses, and expensive new Soccer Parks that the politicians all excitedly approve. Looking the other way for the REAL waterhogs, is what supplements a politician's salary. That is why Nevada is running dry.


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