LETTER: Boulder City water fixes are just a drop in the bucket

The Review-Journal’s Monday editorial about Boulder City’s lack of wastewater recycling obscures a much larger issue.

Government’s own profligate, one-time use of water at expansive parks, golf courses, the atrophied municipal swimming pool, school grounds, athletic fields and the Bureau of Reclamation has not been meaningfully reduced. This use comprises more than 50 percent of total water consumption, or roughly 2 billion gallons a year.

Much like the minuscule effort to cut back 5 percent of total turf at the two city golf courses, city officials have repeatedly failed to implement a comprehensive plan appropriate to the desert climate we live in and the reality of Clark County’s current population, far different than the 1930s. Wildlife species would be negatively impacted by removal of the ponds and discharge, but no analysis exists. The 250 million gallons of wastewater pales in comparison with more than 2 billion gallons of annual government irrigation in Boulder City alone. Officials cannot hide behind this project as a complete solution.

Construction and operating costs would be far less to use treated wastewater in Boulder City for the Veterans Cemetery, Veterans Memorial Park and the two municipal golf courses, which are proximate to the wastewater treatment plant.

Similarly, the Southern Nevada Water Authority needs to halt construction of new swimming pools, reduce park and golf course turf dramatically and immediately require the removal of expansive, water-guzzling ornamental turf in existing neighborhoods such as Henderson’s The Fountains, Lake Las Vegas and Las Vegas’ Rancho neighborhood. It has failed to act. Assembly Bill 356 from 2021 does not go nearly far or fast enough to conserve irrigation water.

When will greater Las Vegas use its dwindling water prudently?