Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005 | 7:03 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- One year ago Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., unveiled a splashy new proposal to pay schools and government agencies to rip out their grass to save water.
With the strong backing of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Ensign's proposal drew acclaim and media attention when he pitched it at an event at Caesars Palace in December 2004.
"We need to be thinking outside of our boxes," Ensign said at the time.
But the water-saving proposal gathered dust for a year. Ensign never even introduced the legislation needed to pay for the plan.
Ensign aides blame politics and bad timing.
Ensign had proposed to pay the $200 million cost of the plan with money generated by the 1998 Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act. Under the act, co-authored by Ensign, federal land in Clark County is sold at auction and the profits remain in Nevada, with 85 percent of the money being used for land and conservation programs, 10 percent for water programs and 5 percent for education.
But early this year, the land act came under fire.
The Bush administration proposed funneling 70 percent of proceeds to the Treasury to help reduce the deficit. Land sale profits have soared beyond expectations -- nearly $2.8 billion so far -- and critics have said Nevada was raking in more cash than it could use. Nevada lawmakers in Congress sharply disagreed and successfully scuttled the Bush proposal this year.
But Ensign did not want to attract additional attention to the land sale profits with a new proposal for spending $200 million of the cash, aides said. So the senator quietly shelved the turf bill.
"The timing wasn't right to pursue the buy-back program," Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said.
But the senator sent a clear message to the Bush administration: Hands off the land sale money, Finn said. Ensign plans to introduce the bill next year, if the timing is right, his spokesman said.
"We'll wait to see what the political atmosphere is when we get back," Finn said.
Ensign proposes replacing grass with desert landscaping at Southern Nevada schools and parks and at local, state and federal government agencies. The proposal's goal is to remove as much as 247 million square feet of grass, saving the equivalent water used each year by 63,000 households in the Las Vegas Valley, according to his office.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority continues to back Ensign's proposal, spokeswoman Tracy Bower said.
Since 1999, the authority has managed its own turf buy-back program that pays homeowners and businesses $1 per square foot of grass. One square foot consumes roughly 55 gallons of water a year, authority officials say.
The authority's program has seen the removal of 66.7 million square feet of turf, roughly equivalent to an 18-inch wide strip of grass stretching one-third of the way around the Earth, Bower said. The program saved 2.9 billion gallons of water alone last year.
Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@ lasvegassun.com.
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