CARSON CITY – The days are numbered for much of the water-hungry grass in the drought-stricken Las Vegas Valley.
Almost a third of all grass in southern Nevada must be removed by the end of 2026 under a new law signed by Governor Steve Sisolak on Friday amid falling Lake Mead levels and a two-decade-long drought that showed no signs of water scarcity End shows.
“I think it’s up to us to make the next generation more aware of our conservation of our natural resources, with water being particularly important,” Sisolak told reporters last week when asked about the bill before signing it .
Specifically, Assembly Bill 356 will prohibit the Colorado River water distributed by the Southern Nevada Water Authority from being used to irrigate “non-functional lawns” beginning January 1, 2027. The water board has said that this will include the grass between streets and sidewalks, center and roundabouts, as well as ornamental grasses outside of industrial parks, housing developments and similar areas. Single-family houses, golf courses and parks are exempt from the ban.
The water authority estimates that the new law will eventually result in the removal of between 3,900 and 4,000 acres of non-functional grass or about 6 square miles of thirsty lawn. That’s about 30 percent of the 13,000 acres of grass currently in the Las Vegas Valley.
For more than two decades, the Water Board has encouraged residents and business owners to pull their weed. The current incentive program offers $ 3 for every square foot of lawn that is converted to desert landscape. More than 4,500 acres of grass have been removed since this program started.
Homeowners have been better at making the switch to desert landscaping because they removed about 60 percent of the agency’s dead-turf target. Commercial real estate is lagging behind these efforts, however, removing only 20 percent of the agency’s target in the past 20 years.
For the driest state in the country, water conservation efforts will become even more important in the future as the drought in the American Southwest has intensified and is expected to worsen.
The latest Bureau of Reclamation study, released in May, predicts the water table for Lake Mead, which provides about 90 percent of the water for southern Nevada, will drop so low this year that it will trigger its first federally declared water shortage. A formal declaration of the shortage could be made in August if these predictions are correct.
This shortage would reduce the allocation of 300,000 acres of water from the Colorado River in southern Nevada by 13,000 acres of feet. One acre of water is roughly what two homes in the Las Vegas Valley would use over a 16 month period.
The water board estimates that the turf removal proposal would save about 10 percent of the area’s Colorado River allocation, or about 30,000 acres of feet.
Contact the Head of the Capital Bureau, Colton Lochhead, at clochhead@reviewjournal.com and follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.
