Two new parks may add to criticism that Las Vegans waste water

When Utah Gov. Gary Herbert announced last week that he would not sign a water-sharing agreement with Nevada, he highlighted a persistent public relations problem for Las Vegas: Despite major conservation gains in recent years, Sin City is still viewed as a water hog.

Come Memorial Day weekend, that reputation could really go down the tubes. Fiberglass ones, next to the wave pool.

Construction is well under way on a pair of water parks that promise to bring fun and seasonal job opportunities for valley youngsters.

But when the two parks open, they will provide something else: one more reason to knock the way the community chooses to use its most precious and limited resource.

Wet ’n’ Wild, on 41 acres in the southwest valley, will feature more than 25 slides and water rides, including a 17,000-square-foot wave pool and lazy river.

Cowabunga Bay, on 23 acres near the Galleria at Sunset mall in Henderson, will boast a 35,000-square-foot wave pool and “the longest lazy river in the state,” along with its own array of slides and rides.

If local water officials are worried about the message the projects might send, they are hiding it well.

“I don’t think public recreation is a waste of water,” says Las Vegas City Councilman Bob Coffin, who serves on the Southern Nevada Water Authority board. “I can’t wait for these water parks to open. I want to go.”

LAND OF ‘FLASHY FOUNTAINS’

Herbert says his decision to reject the long-delayed Snake Valley agreement came after listening to the pleas of western Utah residents and officials.

People along the border worry that the pact would clear the way for Las Vegas to siphon groundwater from the vast rural basin, leaving a wasteland of dead plants, bankrupt agricultural operations and dust storms reaching all the way to the Wasatch front.

Nevada officials are still deciding how to respond, but those in charge of the Southern Nevada Water Authority have said an interstate dispute over Snake Valley could land the two states in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, opponents of the authority’s plans to tap groundwater across eastern Nevada are celebrating Utah’s decision to defy a city some believe doesn’t deserve any more water.

In an editorial hailing Herbert’s gumption, the Salt Lake Tribune put it this way: “The fact is that the people who wanted to stick their straw into Snake Valley water now have, and always will have, only one interest: Providing Las Vegas with all the water it can consume in its flashy fountains and green golf courses.”

Water parks might soon join that list.

But J.C. Davis, a water authority spokesman, says such rhetoric conveniently ignores the reality on the Colorado River.

Utah is home to roughly 100,000 more people than Nevada but enjoys more than five times as much water from the Colorado.

In fact, Nevada’s annual allocation of 300,000 acre-feet is the smallest by far among the seven Colorado River states, and almost every drop goes to supply drinking water to more than 70 percent of the state’s population. No other state relies so heavily on the river to provide water to its residents.

Davis says Las Vegas will always be criticized regardless of what the community does to conserve. To some people, this desert city’s very existence is an indefensible waste of water.

“Should we get rid of the pool at the YMCA?” Davis says with a chuckle. “Really, how far do you need to go to appease people? Because some people just aren’t going to be appeased no matter what you do.”

DOING MORE WITH LESS

Doug Bennett doesn’t take this stuff personally. The Southern Nevada Water Authority conservation manager says the facts are on his side: “People need to be accountable for the water they are using, and I think we are accountable. I don’t know of any other city in the country that’s doing more than we are to cut down our water use on a per capita basis.”

In 1990, the average valley resident consumed 347 gallons of water per day. Last year, that number shrank to 219 gallons — still higher than other cities in the Southwest, but dramatically lower than it was.

In the past decade alone, the community has reduced its overall water consumption by one-third even while adding 400,000 new residents.

The effort has not been easy or cheap, Bennett says.

The community has banned front lawns at new homes, imposed landscape watering restrictions, clamped down on fountains, misters and car washes, and plowed about $200 million into conservation initiatives.

Most of that money has gone to pay people to replace their grass with desert landscaping.

The turf rebate program alone saves 9 billion gallons of water a year, Bennett says. To date, roughly 165 million square feet of grass has been removed from valley homes and businesses. That would be enough to form an 18-inch-wide roll of sod stretching about 85 percent of the way around the Earth.

With the amount of turf removed from valley golf courses under the rebate program, you could build nine new 18-hole courses, Bennett says.

Just don’t try to get him to pick a fight with Salt Lake City over water efficiency.

“If you get down to the facts, both communities probably have room for improvement,” he says.

Coffin seems perfectly happy to mix things up a little.

“Salt Lake is just jealous because it’s a boring city,” he deadpans.

10 MILLION GALLONS OF FUN

So what about the water parks?

Shawn Hassett, part owner of Cowabunga Bay, says developments like his are often wrongly labeled as wasteful, but modern parks typically use less water than a similarly sized housing development would.

And when you factor in the number of visitors they serve, “water parks in general are a pretty efficient use of water,” he says.

The developers of Wet ’n’ Wild met with Bennett and his staff during the design phase to talk about how they could reduce their water footprint.

The result is a park expected to use no more than 10 million gallons of water a year, less than one-tenth the consumption of the old Wet ’n’ Wild park that once operated on the Strip.

Instead of emptying into pools, the new park’s water slides will flatten into long run-outs that slow riders’ momentum and allow the water to be captured and reused. Water for the slides will be stored in pipes underground, away from the dry desert air.

“There’s less evaporation that way, less water just getting lost,” says Trevor Wilson, marketing director for the $50 million Wet ’n’ Wild development. “Obviously we want to be environmentally friendly, and we want to use as little water as we can for economic reasons.”

Hassett says the smaller Cowabunga Bay will consume even less water, something on the order of 7 million to 8 million gallons a year.

The average Las Vegas home goes through about 150,000 gallons of water annually. The typical fast-food restaurant uses a couple of million gallons a year, Bennett says.

Water in the parks’ slides and pools will be used and filtered and used again, before being flushed into the community’s sewer system. There, it will be recycled once more — as nearly all the valley’s wastewater is — by being treated and released back into Lake Mead to earn water credits that allow the water authority to draw more from the reservoir.

Both parks will use high-efficiency filters so they can squeeze as much use from their water as possible.

Davis says the only real losses at the water parks will be from “evaporation and whatever is left in people’s swimsuits and towels.”

If Wet ’n’ Wild’s projected water use is spread out among 300,000 visitors a year, it equates to about one 10-minute shower per person, Bennett says. That’s less water than you would use if you let your children run through the backyard sprinklers for two minutes, he says.

Bennett expects some people to see the parks as a giant waste, but he gets paid to worry about how things are, not how they appear to be.

If done right, he says, such parks are a perfectly acceptable way to use water, even in the driest city in North America.

“We’ve never said that conserving water in Las Vegas means no one is allowed to have any fun.”

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.