LETTER: Southern Nevada must ramp up water conservation efforts

My wife and I hike the railroad tunnel trail by Lake Mead every week. Lately it’s very apparent how critical the water level is becoming. Every week you can see the difference. Meanwhile, while at a local nursery, we ran into a landscaper buying up all the English ivy he could get his hands on. His client wants his back wall to look like Wrigley Field. Growing English ivy in the desert is a waste of water.

We are former military, so we’ve lived all over. This is one of the few places in the country where there aren’t separate water meters for irrigation and home use. Normally this is so irrigation can be charged at a lower rate. But in water critical areas such as Nevada, this would allow charging higher rates for irrigation. With new technology, newly installed irrigation water meters could also be centrally controlled to prevent cheating on non-watering days. Relying on the honor system is definitely not working.

Finally, while I applaud the banning of non-functional grass, I believe this doesn’t go far enough. This is the desert, and we need to ban landscaping that employs plantings which are not native or require excessive amounts of water to maintain. Growth in Nevada is exploding, and we need to get serious about water conservation.