What Vegas is doing to save water
Las Vegas is in the midst of a seven year drought that has left Lake Mead (the lake created by Hoover Dam) nearly 100 feet low.
This article in the AJC explains some of things things they’ve done to fight the drought, which essentially offers suggest that Atlanta should follow. They’ve saved about 18 billion gallons a year from 2002-2006, even though they had 330,000 more residents move into the area.
It’s a good read. Thanks to Ryan for the link.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
My older sister lived in Las Vegas for about 10 years and I have been there many times. The city is way overbuilt like Atlanta and actually over time could end up in worse shape than Atlanta for potable water needs.
For the moment they are aggressively trying to halt outside water use for residential homeowners, but they allow the casino/hotel operators to use water in giant fountains, etc.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:50 pm
I visited Lake Mead a few years ago and the water level was low at that time. Colorado River cannot sustain the population growth in Las Vegas and so much ground water is being sucked out the city is actually sinking in elevation.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
This article from New York Times Magazine is required reading:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEFDA103CF932A15753C1A9619C8B63
Jon Gertner’s “The Future is Drying Up” explores the Amercan West’s water management techniques, the most innovative and rigorous in the country. Even under the stringent restrictions and planning, these measures can’t keep up with an exponentially growing population and turbulent weather.
-st
November 25th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I just chatted with my older sister, who had lived in Las Vegas for many years, and she said the AJC newspaper article is filled with baloney about the city.
Article claims: “The gaming and hospitality industries, which account for only 3 percent of the area’s overall water use, are generally pretty good stewards, authority officials say.” Number one she says the Vegas Strip casinos and hotels use way over half the water and NOT 3%. Secondly the casinos/hotels are notorious for wasting water. The Bellagio casino fountain is constantly leaking, in fact so much so the casino drilled their own private well to supply it. Also very little recycled water is returned to Lake Mead from the Strip.
She laughed when I told her the water official said “Controlling growth is not an option.” My sister and her husband moved away from Vegas because growth is out-of-control and water bills shooting through the roof for average citizens. Water is strictly inforced for homeowners in Vegas, because the casinos and hotels want every drop they can get for them.
Only true comparison of Atlanta with Las Vegas is the two state governments wanting to hog water for wealthy tourists at expense of everybody else. Plus is AJC alluding that Atlanta might soon be a desert like Las Vegas?
November 26th, 2007 at 3:49 am
I live in Vegas and wanted to correct a few mistakes that have been posted here by users.
1) “Number one she says the Vegas Strip casinos and hotels use way over half the water and NOT 3%.”
This is not true. All of the figures indicate that the casinos use 3 to 5 percent of the water. This amount has been verified by different sources and studies. Residential locations use around 70 percent of the water.
2)”The Bellagio casino fountain is constantly leaking, in fact so much so the casino drilled their own private well to supply it.”
I am not sure about the leaking part (could you please provide a link to a story as nothing comes up on Google), but the Bellagio fountains use greywater from the casino itself. Golf courses here use similar measures and even post signs on the courses telling people that the water is not safe to drink since it is recycled. There is some water lose to due evaporation but it is very small compared to the entire amount of water used for the rest of the city.
3) Water bills here are not “shooting through the roof for average citizens” in fact many people here think the water is too cheap. I work with one person who pays $10 a month for water! Another person here with a large pool and a lawn pays only $50 a month.
4) “For the moment they are aggressively trying to halt outside water use for residential homeowners, but they allow the casino/hotel operators to use water in giant fountains, etc”
Again, that is due to the fact that residents do not use greywater for lawns.
Las Vegas has been fairly proactive with water conservation, but the population growth will eventually make conservation only part of the solution.
Charles
P.S. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions (charles_bell74@yahoo.com)
From http://nevada.usgs.gov/barcass/articles/Ely11.pdf
Residential use accounts for 65 percent of Southern Nevada’s water use, and residents use about 70 percent of their drinking water outdoors (90 percent in the summer). The breakdown is given as 47 percent of the water goes to effective landscape outdoor use, 23 percent as wasted landscape water, 8 percent for toilets, 6 percent for laundry, 5 percent for showers, 5 percent for faucets, 4 percent for leaks, and 2 percent for baths, dishwashers, and other uses. SNWA points out that between 20 to 30 percent of residential water is lost to leaks and waste water. I feel that these figures can be applied for much of Nevada, not just Las Vegas, and it shows not only how we can avoid wasting water, but also the importance to Nevadans to have lawns, trees, and gardens. SNWA has been making a strong effort to educate the public and to help residents conserve this valuable resource.
November 26th, 2007 at 4:25 am
Here are two pages with graphs showing water usage in Southern Nevada:
http://www.snwa.com/html/cons_waterfacts.html
http://www.snwa.com/html/cons_waterfacts_consumptive.html
Page talking about water rebates/programs/conservation:
http://www.snwa.com/html/cons_index.html
http://www.snwa.com/html/cons_wshome_features.html
November 26th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Lol Charles > Why do people like you defend a city like Las Vegas that exists for water to be wasted at casinos? Conservation of water is a joke in that city. The casinos and hotels can do anything they desire and homeowners required to cut water usage. Your claim of 3% water use by all the strip is preposterous and putting up links to corrupt Nevada officials saying it is so will not wash.
Atlanta cannot use Las Vegas as an example of how to save water, because it basically does NOT have the same situation as Georgia. Nevada still has access to several water sources, but Georgia has only reservoirs that are almost empty. It appears you must work for Las Vegas’ officials.
The only similarity I see between the states is corrupt officials who work to assure that corporate business interests get water even if just a few drops left. Put up hundreds of links to graphs or whatever. Have a nice day.
November 26th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Just so you know my sister’s husband was the health inspector for restaurants on the Vegas casino strip.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Okay… I’ve seen numbers posted in places which estimate that the Atlanta metro region uses roughly 510 million gallons per day from the Chattahooche river basin. Is that number roughly correct?
I’ve also seen numbers saying that the Lake Lanier dam releases roughly 3 billion (3,000 million for those in the UK) gallons per day into the Chattahoochie river.
Given that 500 million is roughly 1/6th of the total being released, doesn’t that suggest that Atlanta isn’t even close to being the majority user of the water in question? And that Atlanta’s usage doesn’t really make much of a dent in the total being sent downstream (especially considering that much of the water Atlanta uses is treated and released back into the river)?
November 26th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Quite a lot is used to generate power, though I don’t have an exact number:
http://www.atlantawatershortage.com/20071120/want-to-conserve-water-turn-off-your-lights/
November 26th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Whoa.
This paragraph startled me:
“To put this into perspective, with average per capita daily water use in Georgia at 75 gallons from surface and ground water, more water will be lost as steam from the possible four reactors at Plant Vogtle than is used by all residents (2005 census) of Atlanta (470,688), Augusta (190,782) and Savannah (128,453) combined (Fanning 2003).”
November 26th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Although, to be clear, Plant Vogtle is not on the Chatahoochie basin. But it does seem to use a LOT of water.
November 26th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Las Vegas is a “crack” city. Gambling (the crack) is the “addiction”. Las Vegas MUST be saved by all means, what would all the “crack/gamblers” do? So HELL YEAH they will do anything short of stealing to save that city. Before there was a a single show, there were slot machines! The shows & food are fluff & fodder, it’s the gambling that carries that town. Professional sports would DIE without gambling! So of course, they are going to have the highest technology for saving water. If Atlanta was THAT important, water saving tech would be priority! But it isn’t, so it’s not. If Las Vegas did not have gambling & glitz, water conservation, not that big a deal. Follow the money!
t
November 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Prootwadl > exact release amount from Buford Dam, at Lake Lanier, varies daily and nobody is really told the exact amount at times. Around 2+ billion gallons daily is most reliable figure. Woodruff Dam at Florida border releases 3.2 billion gallons a day. Lanier is one of 4 lakes that feed to that dam.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Prootwadl -
I wish I could give you exact numbers but they are pretty hard to come by. I think you are on the right track with your numbers, but you also have to distinguish use vs. consumption. You are citing a use figure. Most of that water is returned to the river as treated waste. I have heard 80% but can’t vouch for that figure. What doesn’t return to the stream is “consumed” by Atlanta.
So yes, Atlanta probably needs a minimum flow of somewhere around 500 million gallons / day. That matches pretty well with the inflow we are getting into Lanier now. North Georgia could survive very well on the water we have available. We don’t have a whole lot extra to support power plants, oysters, and mussels though.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I would also add that whatever water is consumed here in north Georgia isn’t destroyed. It evaporates and rains down somewhere else, goes into the groundwater system, etc.
I think some people have a basic misunderstanding of the need to conserve water. The world will never run out of water. It’s not like oil with a finite amount that we are burning through. The only problem with water is that in some places we don’t have enough fresh water where it is needed. In North Georgia, we actually have plenty of water for our needs. We just don’t have enough for our needs plus the “needs” of Florida and Alabama.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
“Your claim of 3% water use by all the strip is preposterous and putting up links to corrupt Nevada officials saying it is so will not wash.”
You say that my claim is perposterous yet this is verified by studies from multiple sources including local, state, federal, acedemic, private studies. I challenge you to post a link that proves your claim that the casinos use half of the water here. My other link came from the USGS. Are you suggesting that their data which Arizona and California also rely on is not accurate?
“It appears you must work for Las Vegas’ officials.”
Definitely not true. In fact, I am moving out of here next month due to a promotion with the federal government. I just get tired of people who post comments about Vegas that are not true. It’s one thing to say that a city like this shouldn’t have been built in the desert, but it is another to spread misinformation that the casinos use 50% of the water here. The first statement is an opinion while the second is simply not true.
If you look at how much water Nevada gets out of the Colorado River compared to the rest of the Southwest, you can see we actually get very little:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
Lower Basin, 7.5 million acre·ft/year (293 m³/s) total
California 58.70%
Arizona 37.30%
Nevada 4.00%
We only get 4% of the water from the lower basin — far less than Arizona or California.
Again, I am not saying that things are done perfectly here, but there have been substantial improvements.
November 26th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Charles > lol so you have a job with the federal government now huh. Nevada government has been lying about water usage by the casinos for years. Saying that the entire strip uses only 3% of total water use is preposterous. Then you claim perhaps 5%. Casinos/hotels are open 24hrs a day with constant flushing of toilets, tourists taking showers, restaurants preparing food and washing dishes, etc. A lot of the homeowners in Las Vegas work on the strip, so they are using that water too. Are you a Repub or a Dem? I know Sen. Harry Reid, so who are going to work for in DC?
Nevada claiming it uses only 4% of the Colorada River water is preposterous as well. More like 25% guy. Have a nice evening. No time to argue with you.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
“Nevada claiming it uses only 4% of the Colorada River water is preposterous as well. More like 25% guy. Have a nice evening. No time to argue with you.”
Yeah, it’s really hard to argue with you when you refuse to post any links that back up your claims. 50% usage? Sorry if I don’t take the word of the health inspector for restaurants on the Vegas casino strip over numerous studies that have been checked and rechecked.
“Then you claim perhaps 5%.”
5% is the upper limit that some studies have suggested. 5% is certainly much more accurate than saying 50% (your number). Let’s see, I am off by at the most 2% and you are off by 47%.
“Casinos/hotels are open 24hrs a day with constant flushing of toilets, tourists taking showers, restaurants preparing food and washing dishes, etc”
Yes, and that water is what creates the greywater that is recycled by the casinos.
“Nevada claiming it uses only 4% of the Colorada River water is preposterous as well. ”
This number is verified by California, Arizona, and the federal government every year. There are multiple check points that regulate how much water each location gets. If any of the states were cheating, there would be an immediate injuction to stop it. Are you now suggestions that Arizona and California are also making up their data?
November 26th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Lol nope saying Nevada lies about their water usage for Las Vegas. The very charts you site for use of water in Vegas is done by water board membership, who also happen to have ties to the casinos. Even the AJC article alludes to their conflict of interest.
Grey-water cannot be used to prepare food, nor to wash dishes, nor for the Bellagio fountain since children and pets might drink it. The homeowners of Las Vegas are basically conserving water to benefit the casinos and hotels.
I have to go, so have a nice life in DC. We in Georgia do NOT want any advice from Nevada on saving water for corporate business to prosper at our expense. Nevada has an aquifer to draw water from, but Atlanta sits on solid rock and we only have surface water for our survival. Your state has always been a desert and we do not desire to become a desert. I do wish you well > off to eat dinner.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
“I do wish you well > off to eat dinner.”
Same here Joe. Sorry if it got heated.
I’m actually not going to DC. I am heading pretty far away from DC.
By the way, I do hope that Georgia has success with its water problems and is able to come up with a workable solution.
Charles
December 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Jay, the fact remains that you’re not using any. Anecdotes do not pass.