Editorial: Drought a grave situation

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006 | 12:30 p.m.

With tens of thousands of grave sites in cemeteries across Southern Nevada, it is enlightening to learn that the grass growing over any one of them will, in one year, use enough irrigation water to fill 30 bathtubs.

According to a story in Monday's Las Vegas Sun, such facts are the reasons Las Vegas Valley Water District officials advocate substituting artificial turf for the real grass in our water-starved region. But local cemetery operators say that, while they are replacing natural turf with desert landscaping in areas that don't have graves, taking the grass from around headstones is an unpopular idea.

An Apple Valley, Calif., cemetery owner told the Sun that the use of artificial turf on some graves there hasn't created an uproar. In fact, clients have asked why the plush, green covering hasn't been placed over their loved ones' sites.

Modern artificial grass, unlike its plastic predecessor, can look and feel very real. But it can be expensive. The superintendent of the 80-acre Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City said it could be 10 years before that facility could afford it. The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which offers rebates for converting to water-saving landscapes, could help devise a plan to make the transition more affordable.

And local cemeteries, which have taken an important step by xeriscaping nonburial areas, could test the artificial grass in some areas and offer customers an informed choice. Maybe clients would prefer to know their loved ones' markers were helping the environment.

When we are making plans to take - by force, if necessary - water from drought-stricken ranches in White Pine County to supply the ever-growing Las Vegas Valley, the least we can do is make sure that we have made all possible sacrifices here. To ask that cemeteries join the community as it conserves water by replacing grass with water-smart desert landscaping and artificial turf seems entirely fair.