Water conservation program cutting usage

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

If you think you've seen a lot less green and a lot more crushed rock lately, you would be correct.

A program to pay homeowners and businesses to replace water-hungry natural turf with desert landscaping is successfully cutting water use in Las Vegas, officials reported last week.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority's turf conversion program has been in place since 1999, removing about 18.3 million square feet of grass in that time. But two-thirds of that, about 12 million square feet, was converted in the last 12 months, water authority conservation manager Doug Bennett told the authority board Thursday.

Bennett said the program has been so successful that the $12.8 million allocated by the board will be used up before the end of this fiscal year in June. By the end of December, halfway through the year, the authority had doled out $8.3 million to businesses and residents.

Bennett said he expected the board would provide more funding for the program because it is one of the cheapest ways to "find" more water. He estimated that the program could spend $17 million this year.

Much of the success of the program could be attributed to both a louder call for water conservation in general and an incentive program that pays businesses and residents $1 for each square foot of grass or water feature surface that is removed.

That is up from the 40 cents a square foot the authority paid before this fiscal year.

"We're extremely pleased with the response by the community to the rebate programs and the water conservation programs in 2003," water authority General Manager Pat Mulroy said. Much of that stems from the savings of water, an increasingly scare resource after four years of drought.

The water saved improves the region's track record as a thrifty user of the resource from the Colorado River, the source of almost all of Las Vegas' drinking water. Perhaps more importantly, every drop saved is another drop that can keep the region's development boom going or be stored into underground water bank for future needs.

The incentive program has provided permanent annual savings of 1.4 billion gallons a year, or about 4,333 acre-feet of water. Bennett said the cost per acre-foot -- an amount used by a typical family in one year -- was about $5,200.

For the authority, that's a bargain. Rights to an acre-foot of ground water can go for about $10,000 when the authority has to buy it. An acre-foot of water is enough to provide for a family of four for a year.

The authority wants to expand the program. One limitation under the current rebate program is that it only applies to homeowners willing to remove at least 400 square feet of turf.

Bennett pointed out that many houses that have been built in Las Vegas in the past decade have small lawns -- but replacing those smaller lawns with desert landscaping could still cumulatively provide significant water savings.

Bennett also suggested a couple of changes that would limit some applications for turf-conversion rebates.

One change would prohibit homeowners or businesses that plant grass during a drought from receiving any rebate.

Those who receive the rebates also would have to keep them in place for at least a decade, up from five years under the present rules.

Vince Alberta, a water authority spokesman, said that the rule changes do not have to be approved by the board. Staff will develop the changes and could implement them this spring.

Bennett suggested one rule will stay in place, and it is a rule that will help keep neighborhoods attractive. The rebate program now requires that new desert landscaping contain natural foliage. When planted, that foliage might look like just a few twigs sprouting from a sea of crushed red rock.

But when those plants or trees mature, they are required to cover 50 percent of the total area. Bennett said the requirement is important to help create attractive, livable areas.

"A lot of people have the misconception that we're asking them to give up their quality of life," he said.