Monday, March 07, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

DESERT REALITY: Life after drought will have its limits

Conservation efforts likely to continue as water use grows

Jose Leon of Price Landscaping shovels decorative rock Friday as part of a turf conversion at a home in Henderson. Water officials say making drought measures permanent would help transform conservation from a temporary response to the weather to a way of life in the desert. Photo by Clint Karlsen. Jose Leon, left, and Luis Alberto move rock during a turf conversion Friday in Henderson. Such projects are credited with saving 2.8 billion gallons of water a year since 1999. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

They were born of a drought that will one day end, but local watering restrictions and other conservation measures could be made permanent as officials look to stretch a vital resource that is nearing its limit.

Experts predict Southern Nevada could be as little as four years away from outgrowing its current water supply, 90 percent of which comes from the drought-stricken Colorado River.

As a result, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has stepped up its pursuit of additional resources, including water banked in other states or pulled from rivers and underground basins in rural Nevada.

Sustaining recent conservation gains could prove to be crucial as additional water supplies are developed, officials say.

"The response we are seeing, which is tremendous, we know that is a drought response, and it could go away," said Kay Brothers, deputy general manager for the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "We have to make sure that doesn't happen."

Doug Bennett, conservation manager for the water authority, said success could require nothing short of a community-wide lifestyle change. "People will have to come to realize, not that we're in the middle of a drought, but that we live in a desert."

To paraphrase a slogan used during the development of the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, Brothers said Las Vegas must transform itself from a city in the desert to a city of the desert.

Any move to make current conservation measures permanent will require approval from the water authority board and its member agencies, which include the Las Vegas Valley Water District, Clark County, Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City.

The idea will be discussed in detail in the coming months by the authority's Integrated Water Planning Advisory Committee, a 29-member panel formed in August to help plan the next 30 years of water development.

Brothers said she hopes to see several measures outlive the current drought. They include assigned watering days and seasonal watering restrictions; tightly controlled water budgets for golf courses; development codes that prohibit turf grass in front yards and limit it in back yards; and incentive programs that rebate money to people who replace their grass with desert landscaping.

Since its launch in 1999, the authority's turf-replacement rebate program is credited with saving 2.8 billion gallons of water a year that would have been used on lawns. The turf removed last year alone -- nearly 1.2 square miles of turf for a total of $27.8 million in rebates -- accounts for almost 1.8 billion gallons of those projected savings.

Water officials said that last year is also when the community arrived six years early at a conservation goal set by the water authority in the late 1990s.

Bennett said the recipe for meeting future goals is a blend of watering restrictions and conservation incentives, with a healthy dose of educational outreach.

If all else fails, Bennett said, the water authority can always roll out a rate hike to remind people of the value of what comes out of their taps. "Pricing has an impact on people's water use," he said.

Almost as important as the water saved through conservation is the message the effort sends to residents in rural Nevada and the six other states that depend on the Colorado River, Brothers said.

"I think there's no question that we need to use the resources we have as efficiently as we can," before asking others to share their water with Las Vegas, Brothers said. "That's our credibility."

But White Pine County rancher Dean Baker said no amount of conservation is likely to change his impression of what the water authority has planned for his valley and others in rural Nevada.

"It's like they're asking us, 'Can I let my 700-pound gorilla come live in your little boy's room because it doesn't have any place else to stay?' " said Baker, whose family has made eastern Nevada its home for more than 50 years.

"Las Vegas has a problem with water. I don't question that," the Integrated Water Planning Advisory Committee member said. "But does that mean because you have money and the power you can go change things forever somewhere else? I don't think it's right, but that's just my opinion."

Environmentalist and fellow committee member John Hiatt has similar concerns.

During Monday's committee meeting, Hiatt argued that conservation in the absence of drought will be "a much tougher sell," especially if growth in the Las Vegas Valley continues unchecked.

"In the neighborhood I live in, people say, 'So I'm supposed to conserve water so we can build more houses? Forget it.' "

Brothers said such attitudes are to be expected, but she is counting on something she called Southern Nevada's "community ethic" to triumph in the end.

"Personally, I think the residents want to do the right thing," she said. "And conserving water in the Mojave Desert is the right thing to do."