I would think the biggest problem. You all live in a desert, grass, golf courses, man made lakes, massive resort swimming pools, etc.. what did you think was going to happen.
You do realize, huge chunks of CA would be just as desolate without Lake Mead. California BUILT THE DAMN THING (no pun intended). If it wasn't for CA's need for fresh water, Las Vegas would not exist.
@ASquadWiper The Ogallala Aquifer happens to be the biggest. Both aquifers are being drained beyond recovery. What’s more important drinking water or swimming pools, farms or water entertainment?
When I lived in El Paso around 2000 the city passed an ordinance that we could no longer have lawns, only public parks and school athletic fields. There are so many landscape rock types and desert plants that you can have a beautiful yard sort of like a Japanese desert garden.But as an example of our society now, the rich poor water into the sand while whole communities are getting shut down with no drinking water. Welcome to the U.S. with the rich having no limits to their entitlement.
I know that El Paso Texas is not as dry as Las Vegas Nevada but both cities are still in part of a desert so water is essential not optional and it certainly should not go mostly to the rich.
Yep. We don't have enough water to flush toilets or take decent showers, but we have plenty for golf courses and fountains. But the water we use in our homes is recycled and returned to Lake Meade while the water at golf courses and fountains is not. We can tell who matters in NV, and it isn't the people who live here. 😡
@@dennistaylor5052 Here too in Vegas, Traffic is insane. Massive apartment buildings going up everywhere. Traffic is insane. Migrant housing maybe? My sons gf went to look at an apartment and they wanted 1600 for a one bedroom. Crazy unless you figure they will be paid for with section 8. Not sure who would want to spend 1600 per month or 19,200 per year for a one bedroom apartment.
The 💘 of money is indeed the root.if you look hard enough you can trace $ to evil. Long term: more contractors developing and more people using more water. The builders don't care about future posterity they just want $. "That's their problem not ours"
@@malibustacy3606 There's a down side of that. They figured out when they remove salt from water and pump the discarded water back to the ocean. It's killing the local fish life from extra salted water. It's toxic to fish life.
Hoover Dam was completed in 1935. The population of Las Vegas in 1930 was a little over 5,000 people. Today there are about 2, 772,000 people. Can't expect to get blood from a stone.
Before Las Vegas was settled along with the dozens of other small cities, the whole region was called "the desert southwest". The region got that name because it did not rain there. Not because of climate change
True climate change hasnt reduced the amount of rain falling on Las Vegas... but it HAS reduced the amount of water flowing down the Colorado river. But dont let that get in the way of your agenda.
@@nottiification True climate change happens because of plate tectonics and or continental drift. Which alters ocean currents and wind patterns/jet streams.. The oceans control the planets climate and the sun controls the temperature of the oceans along with shifting magma at the core
But the underground aquifers **are** drying up due to less rainfall in their collection basins. This means less water farther downstream. Climate change is a real issue that has to be dealt with if our grandchildren are to survive... OTOH, I also **firmly** believe that much of the SW's water problems are also of their own making. LA stole three freaking rivers, West Texas and New Mexico have been damned near at war over water since before the Alamo, and the ENTIRE region cannot support multiple metropolitan zones of 250 thousand + people. The SouthWest mismanaged the land and water resources so they're being hit first, but even in my Pacific NorthWest [where water isn't as much of a problem] we're getting droughts. EVERYBODY has to face this issue.
I saw this coming 20+ years ago while in Phoenix for a job interview. After a long... day of traveling, I settled into my room and turned on the tub water for nice hot soak. 15 minutes later... the tub was still less than 1/2 full?!? That evening, I learned that Phoenix was 3 years into a drought cycle, and that there were under water restrictions, including having water restrictors on faucets. Today... the desert remains a desert, the population is up by approx. 20%, and water waste, though down, remains for those with the deepest $$$ pockets.
That was my wake-up call 20+ years ago. Today..., water shortages in the Southwest are due to over population. Developers continue to build communities in the desert, pump in water from other areas, and replace vultures with "Flamingos."
@@commonsense6611 I said this when I live in Arizona in the 80s. We took quick showers, not baths. We didn’t wash our car. Yeah, it looked nasty, but so what? I was amazed at how much water we slung to grow in a golf course, so the owners could sell houses. It was all reclaimed water. We saw it rain once in two years, during a dust storm. It literally rained mud. I knew it was overpopulated then, and I’m sure the population has almost doubled since then. We’re literally breeding ourselves to death. People all over the south should rid their yards of st. Augustinegrass, watering that stuff accounts for half of the water use in Florida. And private swimming pools? What a waste. The cities own public pools and so does the YMCA/YWCA.
I'm originally from Phoenix (now long since left) and it was said over 35 years ago that there would be a water crisis if the growth at the time wasn't held in check. Nobody listened and now the home building is at an insane pace.
One thing that amazed me about living in a condo in Vegas was the Home Owner's Assn prohibited 'clothes lines'... Causing the need for electricity to dry on sunny days! Driving past a sea of condos on the desert and No Clothes lines. HOA flop! A suggestion for improvement. Clothes lines can be really colorful.
HOA's should be restricted on what their by-laws should contain and only approved by the governing body that authorized the HOA. Rules which violate an owners Rights should be prohibited.
When I look at a desert community like Las Vegas, I shouldn't see great expanses of green. All landscaping should be xeriscape, with drought-tolerant plants and trees. Any person or corporation that wants a "lake" should be required to have the water trucked in from some distant place where it is plentiful. A per-person base should be established for every property, and water consumed beyond that should be taxed heavily. Just because someone can afford to waste water doesn't mean that they should be allowed to do so.
Capitalism can curtail the problem. As the supply gets lower then the price gets higher. If the price get crazy high then the millionaires would be funding projects to bring more water in with the enormous bill they paid. However they would prob just stop using so much.
Watering grass in the desert is a losing proposition for all. City and county building codes must mandate desert-scapes for all new construction and HOAs must adjust guidelines mandating transition to a non-grass landscape. Unfortunately, it will likely take a catastrophe to change the consumer...no water pressure.
A commenter named Joe Thompson here wants the price to be increased for everyone as a solution. That will only hurt "normal" people and normal usage. Instead, do a volume-based price increase, if you are going to do any increase at all. No change in cost up to a certain usage level; if you go beyond that usage level, then a price increase. That's a million times more fair toward normal people who engage in normal use levels, while only increasing the cost on the rich who are most able to pay for their abnormally high usage levels.
You have a good point, adding to the cost of water would never hurt the rich. Goes with the saying "You can't tax the rich". To the rich it is a business expense written off in taxes, also an expense passed on to the consumer.
Why grow grass in a desert region? Grass and grass seed should have been banned in the region many years ago. In addition, new developments should be halted until reservoir levels can be maintained to support growth.
Waay overdue for new attitudes to planting & maintaining grass in the desert 🏜 I agree with an earlier commenter who said those who use more than their allotment per person (unless some approved health reason), the price should climb rapidly as more is used, with a maximum cap to prevent billionaires from going crazy.
there are good grasses for deserts that can and do help trap water and bring it down to aquifers and help prevent flash flooding.... sad part is they aren't using said grasses. Grass isn't the issue, its what type and how you water it. see the Al Baydha project; grass is integral to healing the land in saudi arabia. It can work in america as well with probable better results since we get more rain. Grass has gotten a bad rap for too long, people need to be less ignorant and inform themselves on how the earth works before making blanket statements.
@@ShiningSakura - You are probably right about using the right grasses. However, I suspect that the grass you propose would be rejected in Nevada as its appearance would not be conducive to the inhabitants of the area.
Suddenly there’s concern for water usage,The same concern in the mid nineties,What happened then,A moratorium on building permits,Lasted sixty days,Then cancelled,The apparent realization that the population growth would financially impact the wealth flowing into Las Vegas was more important than water,Population numbers were hovering around 1.2 million then , of course the media forgot about the water shortage then
@@agenericbot Spending millions to install a lower inlet to catch a greater volume of water isn’t an answer,Climate change will have special meaning for Las Vegas shortly,Farming in California should see a fifty percent reduction by mid year next year,I’m fascinated with what decision will be made ,Corporate Agricultural profits,Cheap illegal disposable labor ,Or people’s needs for water,I’m betting on corporate agricultural profits
Don't forget folks, the water in Lake Mead is your Electricity! Dump the Golf Courses! Dump the Lawns You Live in the Desert, not a Jungle! There is no excuse for using all that water in a Draught! Make it against the Law to have Lawns until the Draught comes to an end. If you want lawn, use Astro Turf!
UNLV has a native plant garden, its almost like a jungle in the desert. Go there if you want ideas for water conservation gardening. Edit: they expanded it in the last 25 years. It’s called the Baepler Xeric Garden. It’s next to Wright Hall.
@@CorruptInfinityOfficial Even in cities way up north this is true. I drove courier in Vancouver, BC and the winters would be 5 degrees warmer downtown and 5 degrees cooler in the summer as all was paved concrete or asphalt: a heat sink.
I have been saying this on every platform in Las Vegas. Nobody understands the severity of our situation. SNWA needs to tell people we only have 5-10 years of water left at our growing rate of consumption. TELL PEOPLE THE GODDAMN TRUTH!!!
honestly, in todays age I don't see how telling people the truth would change anything. They'll continue to use and eventually just flee once the resources are dry. the hubris of man.
We need to be taxing the hell out of big water users. Tax people for every square foot of grass. I own an acre and when I bought the place, I tore out the grass and put in decorative gravel. I stopped outdoor watering. People need to join me.
@@sarges1712In about three-four years I am calling it. We should have xeriscaped and embraced our desert landscape a long time ago but it is too little too late now. Having to rely on California for water or anything for that matter is even more pointless. Nevadans will get screwed like we always do and these corporations will just put their money elsewhere to protect their investments. I will just have to suck it up and move further Midwest.
@@TheBandit7613 Maybe I am naive, but I thought decorative gravel was common in desert communities. Having and maintaining grass seems silly over there. Why did anybody think this was a good idea??
@@Shazzyhtown It's a display of excess, meant to impress. Like, "hey look at me, I have grass and a high water bill" Some people just don't care. Las Vegas should be issuing high fines for wasting water, but they're not.
Why do the Valley's water agencies spend so much time, energy and even money going after residential users to cut back when clearly it's the commercial users using the most. Just banning water features at commercial properties like casinos and water fountains at apartment complexes and other commercial properties would save more water than eliminating all residential lawns. Casinos defend the water features by saying, "tourists come to see them" is BS. Tourists come to gamble, not to see your fountains and rivers.
Do you have data showing that "Just banning water features at commercial properties like casinos and water fountains at apartment complexes and other commercial properties would save more water than eliminating all residential lawns" or is that a speculation or hunch?
Simple solution. Four parts. But here's an old sage...when consequences are inconsequential, there is no reason to change. Please read on. Part one...no more golf courses use of ground or municipal water. They have to install catchments to collect water during the rainy season ( there still is a rainy season) and use that. If they cannot maintain their wildly inappropriate vegetation, then they can redesign the course or close it. Part two. Do the same for home spaces. Private yards look like tropical Edens. They are not. They are actual oasies...supported by a very precious resource. They can install catchment the same way as above. Rain barrels are used everywhere. Use them here. Again, if you cannot manage because the grounds are populated by inappropriate species of plants...then put in more catchment or change the plantings. Part three. Residential tiered usage scale for pricing per unit. Since you have such a range of housing from tiny condos to mega mansions, there will be a range of 4 to 5 tiers for consumption. The more you consume, the higher the unit price. Each tier should have a price that is a multiple of the 1 below it. At the highest end, water should be so prohibitively expensive that high end users are forced to change usage patterns and sources. Part four. Prohibit the delivery of water trucks to golf courses and residences. Some will try to get around this any way they can. Why all this? Because people are arrogant morons. As long as they have money and power, they will do what they want regardless of the consequences. That needs to change. They can have all the money and all the power...they just won't get more water than anyone else.
The problem is you aren’t saving near enough water. Nevada gets 300k acre-feet from their Colorado River allotment. The lower basin states are currently conserving at least 1 million acre-feet of water and it still hasn’t been enough. To compare, here in Arizona, golf courses used roughly 120k acre-feet in 2019 for the entire state. Which was less than 2% of the 7 million acre-feet it gets from all of its sources. You could get rid of all of Arizonas golf courses, all of Las Vegas water use, all of Arizona’s indoor water use and you still would stop water losses. Arizona Agriculture uses more water than all other water uses combined, you could add the entire state of Nevada’s water and you wouldn’t match Arizona agriculture water use. With California agriculture uses way more than that. For some reason these corporations can’t farm anywhere else but here and make money exporting all over the country and globe.
It's funny how the city threatens the average LV resident with fines when these people are using 1000' s of times more than what our grass would use on a Sunday. It's so typical, if you've got enough money the rules don't apply.
@@matthoward8546 now do Arizona, where their conservative state continues to blame residents for water use while the allow farms to use 70% of the water. Including farms exporting water intensive crops to the Middle East. Hell, they were really proud of getting a Taiwanese chip manufacturer in 2020 which is very water intensive. They were also really proud of approving a copper mine sale to a Brazilian mining company that would have used 1/3 of the entire state of Nevada Colorado River allotment by itself.
@@matthoward8546 democrats are way better than Republicans. Republicans are only there to serve big corporations Big pharma big oil etc. and rich folks. Don't pretend otherwise
do you know what the solution will be then i used to work for a large southeast water department -------they will just pump it in from nearby states almost like a railroad but just with underground pipes no big deal
@@freebird1ification which state will provide the water for tens of millions of people? Washington? Louisiana? Mississippi? All the surrounding states have drought issues. It’ll have to come from far, and lots of it.
This all reminds me of the first remark made by our tour bus driver when we rolled out of the city, on our way to Hoover Dam: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mojave Desert.”
Catering to rich idiots is wasting ridiculous amounts of water. But we must be able to golf and see beautiful green grass in the desert. Seems like a very, very simple solution to me.
The problem is the politicians let developers build and expand the city and added millions of people to a reservoir that was built in 1935 for a 1/3 of what the population is today. Common sense should have told them that's not going to work. But nope they keep building adding millions without expanding or building a new reservoir. Politicians want to blame everything but themselves for it and the media is letting them get away with it.
If the demand for water from Lake Mead continues rising at its current rate, you can be sure that in the not too distant future tumbleweeds will be the only new players rolling into town.
Two years before we moved to Vegas there was a law in place keeping lawns from being planted in all new home construction. In my area we had decorative rocks with native shrubs and trees. Drip systems were also used. Incentives were given to people that had yards and removed them. The HOA did have several pools and spas, the warm water pool was heated by solar and the gate entrance fountain was recycled water. Not perfect but better than most! Pool covers were used a lot too so there wasn't a lot of evaporation.
@@Aztec339 Surprisingly, pools actually use less water than yards. Once full you only need to account for evaporation while you have to constantly water a lawn.
Sad...before they built those homes the county/city should have forced the developers to use water conserving measures in their designs. Well, that might make it harder to sell homes to folks so that didn't happen. Funny how the public are at fault for the problems of county/city water issues (as well as other problems they have) and those who manage water systems like the colorado river project do not tell developers and local governments " the river has reached its capacity " to supply water. STOP building new hotels, casinos, homes, no more people etc.
Parks and golf courses use effluent water, go ahead and drink it. 😂. It's cleaned raw sewage and chemically contaminated water not meant for human use.. Very important your children, or yourself do not touch there face and or play in the sprinklers.
Too little, too late! We knew what was going to happen when they were built and approved for construction. If there's a problem, stop building! But the REAL GREED doesn't want that! 😡
OMG we've got to stop using water for things like golf courses, hotels and parks. Until and or if we ever pull out of these droughts, wasting water use has simply got to stop.
Golf is not a sport, but a HOBBY and a lifestyle, and for some, it becomes a passion. Golf i not a sport. Most people will tell you that the money they invested in the game was well worth it. There is no denying the fact that expensive. Shut down the courses and save water.
In the 80s they tried to put in place scale use pricing, high users would pay more based on tiered consumption but the casinos shut it down. Money has clout even when the majority of LV residents felt it was a fair method to apportion resources. At the time lake mead was full so the concept was brushed away as unnecessary.
Summerlin also has HOA’s with yard/lawn code enforcement in many areas. (i know because my grandfather lived there & is the “get off my line” type who tattles on his neighbors.) Collectively, these houses also use a lot of water fighting to keep a green lawn in a desert. >.
Conversely in Arizona they have "rock" lawns with colorful small stones and a mylar underlayment to not only keep the rocks from becoming part of the dirt, but allow water runoff to fill drainage pipes feeding the reservoirs. Greed has always killed societies.....
Now also show Californias water usage as they use water from lake mead as well yet have no restrictions or is water used for the increase demand on almonds toooooo important?
Angel Park golf course uses recycled water and has done so for over a decade. Waste water is treated and piped to several golf courses in a delivery system separate from potable water systems. Hmmmm, I wonder why Ms. Spears failed to mention this?
Man avoided building in deserts and extreme cold. In the last two hundred years our arrogance decided to ignore millennia of city locations, we have pushed into deserts and drained our lakes and rivers to make it habitable. It’s a desert and fails to be adequate for support of human habitation. What do expect?
The truth is man did build in deserts, but our modern urban planning system that is highly reliant on high water use, car useage, gasoline, and other resources is UNSUSTAINABLE.
@@dustywaxhead when man built in the desert it was in small settlements around natural water sources. It is the water we are running out of, not gasoline or power. There was even a plan to bring water from Texas to California. It would have cost 100 billion dollars. It was voted down. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. We should learn from our ancestors and those tribes that live on the edges of deserts. But we are to smart for that.
The question is, even if these joints closed down, water use in Las Vegas would still increase because the population keeps increasing and thus more houses (and everything else that goes with them) are being built. The solution would be to stop moving to Las Vegas and people to stop having babies. Before there were people in Vegas, lakes, lawns and golf courses did not exist. Venice canals only existed in Venice, and not in a Las Vegas Strip resort in a bone-dry desert. There are about 150,000 hotel rooms in Vegas. I doubt many guests are concerned with saving water in their rooms, since they don't live here, so we have 150,000+ (probably twice that) transient visitors to supply water to each day. If Lake Mead runs dry, that will solve the Las Vegas water use problem, since there will be no water to use. If you want to take a bath every day, forget it. Get used to taking an annual bath instead.
that is the real problem, with everything. water, energy, pollution, waste disposal, merchandise, everything. no matter how drastic we cut down on anything we are only prolonging the inevitable. we need a real solutions not bandaids.
Las Vegas is the Poster Child for how an area can FAIL to manage its most precious resource. Given the Lake Meade status, these Big Users need to be shut down and lawn watering forbidden. Perhaps they can Hope that the rain and run-off return but it looks like many will be investing in a wasteland very few can live in.
My family of 4 uses less than 20 gallons per day. We have our own well, maybe people need to know where their water comes from so they can understand how hard it is to get it there.
The problem with water waisting in Las Vegas is that people is not educated to save and conserve water if you tell your neighbor he is waisting water he will come after you and tell you to mind your own business ….🤔🤔🤔🤔
I bet they are overwhelmed. I see water waste every day in apartment complexes and keeping track of this probably requires money nobody has right now. It's up to us to be our own disciplined citizens. The apartment managers all know that they are wasting water and probably aren't being given permission to do anything about it from the landlords so we need again to focus on greedy landlords. They can decorate with rocks and not with so much grass and watering the parking lots.
@Suicide by Muslim Living life like a normal human being is roaming like our ancestors. Playing golf, having lawns and swimming pools is artifical nonsense that isn't necessary.
In door water usage by apartments (aka renters) should not be lumped in with 'water wasters' or 'excessive users'. All water used indoors, including apartment units, is cleaned and reused.
Back when I was a young man, I wanted to live ouy west. California, Las Vegas, Texas... Thay was in the late 70`s early 80`s. I`m SO glad I stayed in good ol` Michigan.
Love that nobody is mentioning that Las Vegas gets 90 percent of its water from the lower colorado river system, and Cali gets a much lower percent of that (I don’t know the number exactly) but California still uses more than 20x the ammount that Nevada does.(from the lower colorado system)
Funny thing is that the people that surveyed the Colorado River in the late 1800's said that it wouldn't support any amount of population growth and that there would serious repercussions later on.
@@shortattentionspangarage1312 John Wesley Powell also served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1881 to 1894. During his tenure he touched off controversy by advocating strict conservation of water resources in the developing states and territories of the arid West. “There is not enough water to irrigate all the lands,” he remarked at a Los Angeles congress of farmers and developers in October 1893. “I tell you gentlemen you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not enough water to supply the land.” Subsequent interstate conflicts over the water of the Colorado and other Western rivers proved Powell’s words to be prophetic
I think this needs to be very clear to all of us living in Las Vegas so we can start to do something about it. California uses something like 12-15x the water WE use from Lake Mead for golf courses, fountains, pools, landscaping, etc. Californians grow Avocados, Almonds, Dairy Cows, Citrus, Pistachios even though they dont have the water resources to do it, Ontop of that they have all the same golf courses, ponds, pools with 10x the people. So they take our water and then we get the blame because a golf course in a desert doesnt make sense. Maybe growing Avocados and Almonds in a drought stricken, arid area (ALL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA), which requires you to pump water from another state, isnt a good idea. We aren't the issue, our use is somewhat sustainable, thought it could use alot of work. California needs to be shut out of the Colorado River water, they are killing the west. If they need water so fucking bad they should just build those desalinzation plants... Oh wait they spent like $5Billion on a bullet train that doesnt exsist and thats why they cant desalnize water. Bullshit. we are going to be forced from our homes because of this.
Great answer. Yes time to make a change time to understand water is the most inportant thing not cars not money not job time to reflect about beeing a plane human
@@deedeebel1 this is more or less my point, its the kind of crops more than that they are growing crops. Food staples and necessary food items should be focused on. Dairy, almonds, avocados, and even wine at the quantity its produced is the issue. those crops arent suited for that enviornmet and thus take more water. so cal has been talking about water shortage and reduction since the 80s, but water usage continuted to climb. instead of trying to build a bullet train, they shouldve brokeground on desalinization plants. with that, we just have a smaller population here in nevada. for us to have a things like golfcourses providing 3 million people with access, is a bit different then providing 10 million people in LA county alone. but i digress, i dont agree with it regardless. none of that should be a thing in drought stricken areas in my opinion. this is all avoidable by simple forethought and simple adjustments. agriculture in cali doesnt need to stop, it needs to change. spraying water into the dry wind over crops is no longer a viable method for watering, yet it is still allowed in so cal. it is destroying the west, and has destroyed all of so cal as well. it cant continue to go on. we face two options, increase the cost of food as a result of increased water cost from building desalinization and no longer relying on the colorado as a primary means of water in California and Arizona as well, or we let the river run entirely dry, or very low (historically the colorado is a seasonal river, it would dry up entirely at times before dams were built.) If it does run dry, or we run out of drawable water, las vegas becomes a ghost town, So Cal will immediately go into a state of distress and crop production will be impossible entirely. we will kill the west, this is a bigger threat than Russia and China at the moment. This could displace over 60-100 million people over then next 10-20 years
You neglected to mention the "Data Storage Centers"! There are at least 2 of them in the Vegas area and another 1 or 2 in Henderson. They use water to cool the data towers, and from what I understand, each building uses in excess of one million gallons a month, that gets vaporized! Everyone wants their "CLOUD" storage, well, there's a cost!
Thank you for starting this investigative series. It’s interesting to know what private homes and HOAs are the biggest consumers of water and what they’re doing to conserve.
Most asinine decision regarding this dilemma that was made, constructing a “bathtub drain” at the bottom of Lake Mead so they could “drain it to the last drop”, instead of maybe making other more effective plans of avoiding this sh*t show!
Lake Mead is not a lake... it is a Reservoir. The asinine are those who believe preventing what is inevitable is the solution. The only solution to a growing demand and diminishing supply is... a new source. Las Vegas will need to invest in desalination technology and infanstructure to pull water in from the Pacific or Gulf of California. Generating the electricity needed can be done with solar power . In fact, cali and arizona should do the same. Does this sound crazy, unimaginable, impossible ?.... yeah....well so did the Hoover Dam
We are not in control of Lake Mead. Nevada only uses 4% of the water. California and Arizona use 96% of the water. Our water can't depend on what they do.
@@justayoutuber1906 You don't understand. Out of all the water in the lake, 4% goes to Nevada, 35% goes to Arizona and the rest goes to California. Nevada doesn't even use the whole 4% share. Nevada saw this coming 40 years ago and took action then. AZ and CA didn't plan for this. Nevada is fine.
Damn shame the east side doesn’t have +250 parks, the community discrimination is real in Vegas. Weird because the entire city is a reflection of Las Vegas not just 1 region… Anyone ever noticed Hendersons’ street lights are white but the rest of the valley is “cliche”?
I'm retired and bought an RV to travel. Now my only home. Since pandemic started I have been living completely of the grid. About 18 months now in the LV area. No electricity. No water. Solar has provided all the power I have required to use microwave, make coffee, watch TV over the airwaves and so on. I haul water back to refill RV fresh tank every couple of days. About 20-25 gallons per week. All I need to keep clean, wash dishes and operate toilet in bathroom.
@@natureboy1313Well, quite comfortable actually. No smell. You perceptions might be a bit skewed. Anyway, just bought 35' sailboat in slip. So I can live aboard that also. Best of both worlds on the cheap in my opinion.
I’m surprised that the crooked city officials allowed you to name those rich offenders. Usually the government goes out of their way to protect the rich criminals.
Once Lake Mead’s water level drops below the intakes accessible to the California and Arizona water users, the rate of decline will drastically slow since the only intake still submerged will be the one that feeds Las Vegas. Then the city should cap inflow of outsiders to visitors only allowing for the growth in population to current residents’ family expansion until the drought is over decades from now. Southern Californians will then have to rethink the Desalination plant they just voted down.
Don't even need to put a cap outside visitors. Cut back on tourist water wasting things like golf courses, casino water features, expansive outdoor pools. That will have the effect of cutting some tourism and leave a lot of the gambling income in place. Cap growth in housing. Prohibit non-native live landscaping. Put a progressive (exponential) fee structure in place for water consumption for both commercial and residential customers.
Until water costs increases for customers, nobody will be compelled to save water. High water users will need a graduated scale for higher water usage. Double the cost for each 100,000 gallons used. At some point, even the billionaires won’t want to spend millions of dollars a year on water.
No, that will only hurt "normal" people and normal usage. Instead, do a volume-based price increase, if you are going to do any increase at all. No change in cost up to a certain usage level; if you go beyond that usage level, then a price increase. That's a million times more fair toward normal people who engage in normal use levels, while only increasing the cost on the rich who are most able to pay for their abnormally high usage levels.
@@TryGold Possibly, but the point is, if you use water extravagantly, you should pay way more, whatever scale is used. Using 100,000's or millions of gallons of water for what are effectively vacation homes has to stop. These billionaires don't give a shit, so the overusage penalty has to be excessive, so it doesn't do unnoticed by their administrators
Is desalinization out of the question? I hear talk of rising sea levels, glacier melting and global warming causing problems but nothing about using ocean water. Is it the process or the cost?
It’s crazy expensive and not going to curb peoples bad habits. Best thing is to force people to conserve water by significantly increasing the cost of water to known wasters and getting rid of gold courses and artificial lakes, fountains and things like that. When people see their eater bills go up ten fold or even a hundred they will cut back.
@@jerryG-p3w We had that in Cali a few years back. I think they will have to do it again. The big push now is to replace grass in residential areas. At a minimum use recycled water on all the things you mentioned.
Home users of water can reduce water use by 1)taking "navy" shower which means turn off water when you aren't rinsing, 2)allow clear waste to buildup in the toilet flushing only when solid waste is added (throw tissue paper into trash to avoid clogs), 3) wash/rinse dishes in dish pans or in low flow dish washer, 4) wash sheets/towels every other week, 5) try to wear outer clothes more than once, 6)convert grass yards to rock, 7) don't plant flowers that need watering, 8) wash your car monthly at a recycling car wash instead of weekly. Buying a white car helps because it shows dirt less and 9) try to wash your hair every 3rd day instead of daily. We have low flow faucets/showers but still don't turn tap on full blast for most applications. Tough times!
All great ideas. Unfortunately, the Wealthy will do none of those things. Make grass illegal everywhere it never grew naturally. They can't visit a park with indigenous plants? Surely they can make artificial grass that can be used for sports fields and golf courses.............They just don't want to. Figure out what the average family uses and jack the prices once someone exceeds the average. Also WTF is Lake Las Vegas? Is everyone in the southwest in charge out of of their frigging minds?
You know..each winter, the east coast has millions upon millions of frozen water they don't want. This country can build a pipeline over 2000 miles to carry oil but not water. Hmmm. Thats something to think about.
I am grateful to no longer be in Nevada. I was there for almost 15 years before moving in fall of 2020. Back in 2007 they were having this exact conversation...not much improvement was ever made, because Vegas will always be a tourist economy. They do not want sustainable, economically viable jobs. They city much rather residents pay the consequences for that green grass..that should not even be there while they destroy the natural desert environment.
It’s almost like the homebuilders know they need to build homes while there’s still water and everything is at top dollar.. they’re building like crazy!! Home prices will drop to zero when that water runs out!! It’s gonna happen sooner then later I’d imagine..
I would think the biggest problem. You all live in a desert, grass, golf courses, man made lakes, massive resort swimming pools, etc.. what did you think was going to happen.
You do realize, huge chunks of CA would be just as desolate without Lake Mead. California BUILT THE DAMN THING (no pun intended). If it wasn't for CA's need for fresh water, Las Vegas would not exist.
It still goes back to y'all live in the desert and have no f****** water get some rain
Bingo you cracked the code, they didn't think developers are driven on " Greed " alone!
@ASquadWiper The Ogallala Aquifer happens to be the biggest. Both aquifers are being drained beyond recovery. What’s more important drinking water or swimming pools, farms or water entertainment?
Distillation of sewer water is going to become mandatory if it hasn't already like Singapore has
Hey! Let's live in a desert but make it look like a Tennessee river valley!
What could go wrong?
Ask saudi arabia they know😂
@@rafghani Saudi Arabia desalinates sea water. It's not the same thing.
@@johnjriggsarchery2457 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Lol. Exactly!!
Exactly
AS a kid growing up in northern Nevada, I used to hear the saying, "In Nevada, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over". Still true.
Yes Nevada Battle Born!!!!!
So true
If you can afford to be in the fight.
And stupid with Human Greed
Water law is vicious.
When I lived in El Paso around 2000 the city passed an ordinance that we could no longer have lawns, only public parks and school athletic fields. There are so many landscape rock types and desert plants that you can have a beautiful yard sort of like a Japanese desert garden.But as an example of our society now, the rich poor water into the sand while whole communities are getting shut down with no drinking water. Welcome to the U.S. with the rich having no limits to their entitlement.
I completely agree
I hate how the rich can use more water while the poor have to use less.
I know that El Paso Texas is not as dry as Las Vegas Nevada but both cities are still in part of a desert so water is essential not optional and it certainly should not go mostly to the rich.
I like desert landscaping and yes one can make it look outstanding.
The rich richer get to water their lawns
Yep. We don't have enough water to flush toilets or take decent showers, but we have plenty for golf courses and fountains. But the water we use in our homes is recycled and returned to Lake Meade while the water at golf courses and fountains is not. We can tell who matters in NV, and it isn't the people who live here. 😡
Hard to believe Las Vegas is serious about conservation when every single piece of available land has a housing development being built on it.
Same with Sacramento Ca, Newsom got to get that tax money, Apts going up everywhere
@@dennistaylor5052 Here too in Vegas, Traffic is insane. Massive apartment buildings going up everywhere. Traffic is insane. Migrant housing maybe? My sons gf went to look at an apartment and they wanted 1600 for a one bedroom. Crazy unless you figure they will be paid for with section 8. Not sure who would want to spend 1600 per month or 19,200 per year for a one bedroom apartment.
The 💘 of money is indeed the root.if you look hard enough you can trace $ to evil. Long term: more contractors developing and more people using more water. The builders don't care about future posterity they just want $. "That's their problem not ours"
Same with Arizona
And growing
In 25 years LV will either be a ghost town or pumping water from the Pacific Ocean
Itll be shorter than that....
In California alone there are 11 desalination plants with 10 more proposed, don't think for a second Nevada isn't part of that.
Well said!
@@malibustacy3606
There's a down side of that.
They figured out when they remove salt from water and pump the discarded water back to the ocean. It's killing the local fish life from extra salted water. It's toxic to fish life.
That wouldn’t work!! It cost too much money and the system we have now is profit driven not what’s better for the people driven.
Hoover Dam was completed in 1935. The population of Las Vegas in 1930 was a little over 5,000 people. Today there are about 2, 772,000 people. Can't expect to get blood from a stone.
Las Vegas is NOT the issue. California uses the water from Lake Meade.
@@_Coffee4Closers Pretty sure Hoover Dam was conceived and built for California, not Nevada.
Short answer; get rid of some people. Problem solved.
That would make sense if I too lived in Disneyland. Blind fool. I've got a big word for you to research.
Conservation efficiency.
Can’t possibly be tied to too many humans. Nah! It’s global climate change. Keep breeding fools.
Before Las Vegas was settled along with the dozens of other small cities, the whole region was called "the desert southwest". The region got that name because it did not rain there. Not because of climate change
Who needs truth? We have agendas.
True climate change hasnt reduced the amount of rain falling on Las Vegas... but it HAS reduced the amount of water flowing down the Colorado river.
But dont let that get in the way of your agenda.
@@nottiification True climate change happens because of plate tectonics and or continental drift. Which alters ocean currents and wind patterns/jet streams.. The oceans control the planets climate and the sun controls the temperature of the oceans along with shifting magma at the core
@@nottiification , Thank goodness we have you as our stalwart arbiter of truth.
But the underground aquifers **are** drying up due to less rainfall in their collection basins. This means less water farther downstream.
Climate change is a real issue that has to be dealt with if our grandchildren are to survive... OTOH, I also **firmly** believe that much of the SW's water problems are also of their own making. LA stole three freaking rivers, West Texas and New Mexico have been damned near at war over water since before the Alamo, and the ENTIRE region cannot support multiple metropolitan zones of 250 thousand + people. The SouthWest mismanaged the land and water resources so they're being hit first, but even in my Pacific NorthWest [where water isn't as much of a problem] we're getting droughts. EVERYBODY has to face this issue.
I saw this coming 20+ years ago while in Phoenix for a job interview. After a long... day of traveling, I settled into my room and turned on the tub water for nice hot soak. 15 minutes later... the tub was still less than 1/2 full?!? That evening, I learned that Phoenix was 3 years into a drought cycle, and that there were under water restrictions, including having water restrictors on faucets. Today... the desert remains a desert, the population is up by approx. 20%, and water waste, though down, remains for those with the deepest $$$ pockets.
You're part of the problem if wanted to fill your tub for a soak.
That was my wake-up call 20+ years ago. Today..., water shortages in the Southwest are due to over population. Developers continue to build communities in the desert, pump in water from other areas, and replace vultures with "Flamingos."
@@commonsense6611 I said this when I live in Arizona in the 80s. We took quick showers, not baths. We didn’t wash our car. Yeah, it looked nasty, but so what?
I was amazed at how much water we slung to grow in a golf course, so the owners could sell houses. It was all reclaimed water.
We saw it rain once in two years, during a dust storm. It literally rained mud.
I knew it was overpopulated then, and I’m sure the population has almost doubled since then. We’re literally breeding ourselves to death.
People all over the south should rid their yards of st. Augustinegrass, watering that stuff accounts for half of the water use in Florida. And private swimming pools? What a waste. The cities own public pools and so does the YMCA/YWCA.
Look at the home price there 20 years ago and look at it now.
I'm originally from Phoenix (now long since left) and it was said over 35 years ago that there would be a water crisis if the growth at the time wasn't held in check. Nobody listened and now the home building is at an insane pace.
One thing that amazed me about living in a condo in Vegas was the Home Owner's Assn prohibited 'clothes lines'... Causing the need for electricity to dry on sunny days! Driving past a sea of condos on the desert and No Clothes lines. HOA flop! A suggestion for improvement. Clothes lines can be really colorful.
Clothes lines are considered an eyesore. Lol
@@underthetornado Yeah, realistically; lots of smog and dust, sun fade, etc. HOA's are amusing sometimes like; The Comedy Club or something,....
But clothes lines are a truthful Greenies dream, yet they prohibit them. Something wrong in Bidens Green New Deals.
HOA's should be restricted on what their by-laws should contain and only approved by the governing body that authorized the HOA. Rules which violate an owners Rights should be prohibited.
@@kathyrogers2065 Most trailer parts have HOAs and every subdivision in NV. This is water not clothes. Note biggest users are Trumpers.
This is a great piece of journalism. Sound like Nevadans are still having a hard time facing up to a drier reality.
If the drought that has been mostly ongoing for the last 20 years, will there still be any residents left in Nevada?
It's not dryer it's more people using water.
California gets water from Meade as well, and they have a history of wasting far more water than Nevada.
@@jimlincoln1283 shhhh you will ruin the narrative with you facts, they don’t like that
But what percentage of the big users are really Nevadans?
When I look at a desert community like Las Vegas, I shouldn't see great expanses of green. All landscaping should be xeriscape, with drought-tolerant plants and trees. Any person or corporation that wants a "lake" should be required to have the water trucked in from some distant place where it is plentiful. A per-person base should be established for every property, and water consumed beyond that should be taxed heavily. Just because someone can afford to waste water doesn't mean that they should be allowed to do so.
Millionaires & Billionaires shouldn't be allowed to do as they please when it harms others.
Yet they keep issuing residential building permits. They are building like there is no tomorrow. Irresponsible issuing of permits.
Agreed
I believe that as long as they can pay the water bill, they should use as much water as they want.
Capitalism can curtail the problem. As the supply gets lower then the price gets higher. If the price get crazy high then the millionaires would be funding projects to bring more water in with the enormous bill they paid. However they would prob just stop using so much.
What about all of the companies that are using water for bottled water. When I was a child I never thought I would have to buy my water
Watering grass in the desert is a losing proposition for all. City and county building codes must mandate desert-scapes for all new construction and HOAs must adjust guidelines mandating transition to a non-grass landscape. Unfortunately, it will likely take a catastrophe to change the consumer...no water pressure.
Yep they will sit back and say my yard is beautiful but im thirsty as hell
A commenter named Joe Thompson here wants the price to be increased for everyone as a solution. That will only hurt "normal" people and normal usage. Instead, do a volume-based price increase, if you are going to do any increase at all. No change in cost up to a certain usage level; if you go beyond that usage level, then a price increase. That's a million times more fair toward normal people who engage in normal use levels, while only increasing the cost on the rich who are most able to pay for their abnormally high usage levels.
They need to stop gouging the people that do normal usage
Yeah, just make it more expensive, that'll solve everything. Liberals......
🥰🥰🥰
You have a good point, adding to the cost of water would never hurt the rich. Goes with the saying "You can't tax the rich". To the rich it is a business expense written off in taxes, also an expense passed on to the consumer.
sounds sensible, the opposite of rebates for more usage.
Why grow grass in a desert region? Grass and grass seed should have been banned in the region many years ago. In addition, new developments should be halted until reservoir levels can be maintained to support growth.
Bull on regulation if they dont like it quit building in the Desert
Waay overdue for new attitudes to planting & maintaining grass in the desert 🏜
I agree with an earlier commenter who said those who use more than their allotment per person (unless some approved health reason), the price should climb rapidly as more is used, with a maximum cap to prevent billionaires from going crazy.
@@BoltRM they do that in California theres a meter on the house if you use over a certain amount anything over it the bill goes up
there are good grasses for deserts that can and do help trap water and bring it down to aquifers and help prevent flash flooding.... sad part is they aren't using said grasses. Grass isn't the issue, its what type and how you water it. see the Al Baydha project; grass is integral to healing the land in saudi arabia. It can work in america as well with probable better results since we get more rain. Grass has gotten a bad rap for too long, people need to be less ignorant and inform themselves on how the earth works before making blanket statements.
@@ShiningSakura - You are probably right about using the right grasses. However, I suspect that the grass you propose would be rejected in Nevada as its appearance would not be conducive to the inhabitants of the area.
Suddenly there’s concern for water usage,The same concern in the mid nineties,What happened then,A moratorium on building permits,Lasted sixty days,Then cancelled,The apparent realization that the population growth would financially impact the wealth flowing into Las Vegas was more important than water,Population numbers were hovering around 1.2 million then , of course the media forgot about the water shortage then
climate change is also getting worse. so there's that.
@@agenericbot Spending millions to install a lower inlet to catch a greater volume of water isn’t an answer,Climate change will have special meaning for Las Vegas shortly,Farming in California should see a fifty percent reduction by mid year next year,I’m fascinated with what decision will be made ,Corporate Agricultural profits,Cheap illegal disposable labor ,Or people’s needs for water,I’m betting on corporate agricultural profits
@@sarcasmmuch8905 capitalism۔ 🤑
THEY ALREADY STOPPED ALL NEW BUILDING PERMITS IN CLARK COUNTY FOR 2022 SITING NOT ENOUGH WATER
@@ryancook9007 They stopped permitting in 94,It lasted 3 months,Then business as usual
Good job KTNV. Awareness is the beginning of the way out of this dilemma, and you did a fantastic job with this. 👍
Don't forget folks, the water in Lake Mead is your Electricity! Dump the Golf Courses! Dump the Lawns You Live in the Desert, not a Jungle! There is no excuse for using all that water in a Draught!
Make it against the Law to have Lawns until the Draught comes to an end. If you want lawn, use Astro Turf!
UNLV has a native plant garden, its almost like a jungle in the desert. Go there if you want ideas for water conservation gardening.
Edit: they expanded it in the last 25 years. It’s called the Baepler Xeric Garden. It’s next to Wright Hall.
Exactly, all the damn concrete is keeping heat in too concentrating the issue by insulation
Thats one of the main purposes of the Springs Reserve, is to teach people how to use native plants for landscaping.
@@CorruptInfinityOfficial Even in cities way up north this is true. I drove courier in Vancouver, BC and the winters would be 5 degrees warmer downtown and 5 degrees cooler in the summer as all was paved concrete or asphalt: a heat sink.
I have been saying this on every platform in Las Vegas. Nobody understands the severity of our situation. SNWA needs to tell people we only have 5-10 years of water left at our growing rate of consumption. TELL PEOPLE THE GODDAMN TRUTH!!!
honestly, in todays age I don't see how telling people the truth would change anything. They'll continue to use and eventually just flee once the resources are dry. the hubris of man.
We need to be taxing the hell out of big water users. Tax people for every square foot of grass. I own an acre and when I bought the place, I tore out the grass and put in decorative gravel. I stopped outdoor watering. People need to join me.
@@sarges1712In about three-four years I am calling it. We should have xeriscaped and embraced our desert landscape a long time ago but it is too little too late now. Having to rely on California for water or anything for that matter is even more pointless. Nevadans will get screwed like we always do and these corporations will just put their money elsewhere to protect their investments. I will just have to suck it up and move further Midwest.
@@TheBandit7613 Maybe I am naive, but I thought decorative gravel was common in desert communities. Having and maintaining grass seems silly over there. Why did anybody think this was a good idea??
@@Shazzyhtown It's a display of excess, meant to impress. Like, "hey look at me, I have grass and a high water bill"
Some people just don't care. Las Vegas should be issuing high fines for wasting water, but they're not.
Keep encouraging people that Las Vegas and Phoenix are great retirement cities
Why do the Valley's water agencies spend so much time, energy and even money going after residential users to cut back when clearly it's the commercial users using the most. Just banning water features at commercial properties like casinos and water fountains at apartment complexes and other commercial properties would save more water than eliminating all residential lawns. Casinos defend the water features by saying, "tourists come to see them" is BS. Tourists come to gamble, not to see your fountains and rivers.
Do you have data showing that "Just banning water features at commercial properties like casinos and water fountains at apartment complexes and other commercial properties would save more water than eliminating all residential lawns" or is that a speculation or hunch?
Wow. Now that is the kind of news reporting I remember! Well done.
Simple solution. Four parts. But here's an old sage...when consequences are inconsequential, there is no reason to change. Please read on.
Part one...no more golf courses use of ground or municipal water. They have to install catchments to collect water during the rainy season ( there still is a rainy season) and use that. If they cannot maintain their wildly inappropriate vegetation, then they can redesign the course or close it.
Part two. Do the same for home spaces. Private yards look like tropical Edens. They are not. They are actual oasies...supported by a very precious resource. They can install catchment the same way as above. Rain barrels are used everywhere. Use them here. Again, if you cannot manage because the grounds are populated by inappropriate species of plants...then put in more catchment or change the plantings.
Part three. Residential tiered usage scale for pricing per unit. Since you have such a range of housing from tiny condos to mega mansions, there will be a range of 4 to 5 tiers for consumption. The more you consume, the higher the unit price. Each tier should have a price that is a multiple of the 1 below it. At the highest end, water should be so prohibitively expensive that high end users are forced to change usage patterns and sources.
Part four. Prohibit the delivery of water trucks to golf courses and residences. Some will try to get around this any way they can.
Why all this? Because people are arrogant morons. As long as they have money and power, they will do what they want regardless of the consequences. That needs to change. They can have all the money and all the power...they just won't get more water than anyone else.
The problem is you aren’t saving near enough water. Nevada gets 300k acre-feet from their Colorado River allotment. The lower basin states are currently conserving at least 1 million acre-feet of water and it still hasn’t been enough. To compare, here in Arizona, golf courses used roughly 120k acre-feet in 2019 for the entire state. Which was less than 2% of the 7 million acre-feet it gets from all of its sources. You could get rid of all of Arizonas golf courses, all of Las Vegas water use, all of Arizona’s indoor water use and you still would stop water losses. Arizona Agriculture uses more water than all other water uses combined, you could add the entire state of Nevada’s water and you wouldn’t match Arizona agriculture water use. With California agriculture uses way more than that. For some reason these corporations can’t farm anywhere else but here and make money exporting all over the country and globe.
You sound like an arrogant know it all....
You're making too much sense. It will never work. lol.
It's funny how the city threatens the average LV resident with fines when these people are using 1000' s of times more than what our grass would use on a Sunday. It's so typical, if you've got enough money the rules don't apply.
Yes...And i was taught the democrats were for the little guy...nope.
Yes VIVA Las Vegas!
@@matthoward8546 you were lied to my November India golf golf alpha
@@matthoward8546 now do Arizona, where their conservative state continues to blame residents for water use while the allow farms to use 70% of the water. Including farms exporting water intensive crops to the Middle East. Hell, they were really proud of getting a Taiwanese chip manufacturer in 2020 which is very water intensive. They were also really proud of approving a copper mine sale to a Brazilian mining company that would have used 1/3 of the entire state of Nevada Colorado River allotment by itself.
@@matthoward8546 democrats are way better than Republicans. Republicans are only there to serve big corporations Big pharma big oil etc. and rich folks. Don't pretend otherwise
When the lake dries up the ground water will deplete quickly. Then conservation will truly begin once they have no choice.
do you know what the solution will be then i used to work for a large southeast water department -------they will just pump it in from nearby states
almost like a railroad but just with underground pipes no big deal
They'll start pumping the aquifer long before the lake goes dry. Everyone on wells will be left without water before the city does.
@@freebird1ification which state will provide the water for tens of millions of people? Washington? Louisiana? Mississippi? All the surrounding states have drought issues. It’ll have to come from far, and lots of it.
@@rickb3078 forget Canadian oil pipelines. Just a big ole water pipeline from the Mississippi basin
Based on your words, you do not have a clue about water reality... the lake IS THE GROUND WATER mr howard! OMG! DUH! LOL!
This all reminds me of the first remark made by our tour bus driver when we rolled out of the city, on our way to Hoover Dam: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mojave Desert.”
Thank you for sharing.
Where’s the moratorium on home building? The city that destroyed it self.
Maga...make building great again
Catering to rich idiots is wasting ridiculous amounts of water. But we must be able to golf and see beautiful green grass in the desert. Seems like a very, very simple solution to me.
The problem is the politicians let developers build and expand the city and added millions of people to a reservoir that was built in 1935 for a 1/3 of what the population is today. Common sense should have told them that's not going to work. But nope they keep building adding millions without expanding or building a new reservoir. Politicians want to blame everything but themselves for it and the media is letting them get away with it.
Rich idiots?
Poor MUCH?
Sounds like a YOU problem.
Eat the rich.
We must kill them befor they kill us. Serious!!!
Golfing is an economic engine, just like hotels and other industries. Responsible water usage is the key, Many if not most use recycled graywater.
If the demand for water from Lake Mead continues rising at its current rate, you can be sure that in the not too distant future tumbleweeds will be the only new players rolling into town.
Yes, lake Mead is already disappearing rapidly.
Vegas bought nearly all of Spring Valley (except 3 ranches, 1 my friend ownes), and are building a pipeline.. You can see it east of Vegas on 15.
@@SSsmith24 Spring Valley, its east of Ely. The last valley before Utah..
@@yapandasoftware coocoo coco puff...dasterdly Dems, tin foil hat lately?
Yes well it is a dessert....
Remember one important thing - the total amount of water on Earth cannot ever increase or decrease. It's called the water cycle.
You are exactly right, and the human population is increasing to levels that are hard for our planet to sustain.
Two years before we moved to Vegas there was a law in place keeping lawns from being planted in all new home construction. In my area we had decorative rocks with native shrubs and trees. Drip systems were also used.
Incentives were given to people that had yards and removed them. The HOA did have several pools and spas, the warm water pool was heated by solar and the gate entrance fountain was recycled water.
Not perfect but better than most! Pool covers were used a lot too so there wasn't a lot of evaporation.
That's only for the front yard
Pool covers…..REALLY, POOL COVERS. YOU SHOULDNT EVEN HAVE GOOD DAM POOLS AT ALL! Geez.
@@Aztec339 Surprisingly, pools actually use less water than yards. Once full you only need to account for evaporation while you have to constantly water a lawn.
Sad...before they built those homes the county/city should have forced the developers to use water conserving measures in their designs. Well, that might make it harder to sell homes to folks so that didn't happen. Funny how the public are at fault for the problems of county/city water issues (as well as other problems they have) and those who manage water systems like the colorado river project do not tell developers and local governments " the river has reached its capacity " to supply water. STOP building new hotels, casinos, homes, no more people etc.
@ E mitchell,-Nice Advice, & Good Insight also.
When you run out of drinking water, go to the park, the golf course, or the prince's estate to find water. Wasteful!
How about Caesar palace fountain ? Lol
Parks and golf courses use effluent water, go ahead and drink it. 😂. It's cleaned raw sewage and chemically contaminated water not meant for human use.. Very important your children, or yourself do not touch there face and or play in the sprinklers.
In Arizona they water the golf courses with greywater. Just pissing it away.
@@nonaeubinis4934 yeah that goes with effluent.
I guess you didn't hear the part where they said they big users use less than 1 percent of total.
Too little, too late! We knew what was going to happen when they were built and approved for construction. If there's a problem, stop building! But the REAL GREED doesn't want that! 😡
OMG we've got to stop using water for things like golf courses, hotels and parks. Until and or if we ever pull out of these droughts, wasting water use has simply got to stop.
Like OMG....your like totally super right!!!!
OMG we literally just have to stop!!!!🤣🤣
yeah the droughts are going to get worse.
I'll do my part and stop taking showers. Drink more alcohol.
The rich don't care. They say they pay for it
Golf is not a sport, but a HOBBY and a lifestyle, and for some, it becomes a passion. Golf i not a sport. Most people will tell you that the money they invested in the game was well worth it. There is no denying the fact that expensive. Shut down the courses and save water.
In the 80s they tried to put in place scale use pricing, high users would pay more based on tiered consumption but the casinos shut it down. Money has clout even when the majority of LV residents felt it was a fair method to apportion resources. At the time lake mead was full so the concept was brushed away as unnecessary.
Summerlin also has HOA’s with yard/lawn code enforcement in many areas. (i know because my grandfather lived there & is the “get off my line” type who tattles on his neighbors.) Collectively, these houses also use a lot of water fighting to keep a green lawn in a desert. >.
cant the county or whatever authority ban lawn watering? government overrides HOA I would hope.
@@filanfyretracker i’m sure they probably could, it’s just a matter of actually doing it
Conversely in Arizona they have "rock" lawns with colorful small stones and a mylar underlayment to not only keep the rocks from becoming part of the dirt, but allow water runoff to fill drainage pipes feeding the reservoirs.
Greed has always killed societies.....
All that money in Vegas & no one had the foresight to think about water resources until it literally dried up?
imo
Money has nothing to do with foresight or intelligence.
imo
If in the municipality I can guarantee that doesn't involve work for the needy the actual needy, imagine for the drought.
Living in lala-land
Foresight, what's that?! 🤔
@@ZOOTSUITBEATNICK1 True
@@utterbullspit Foresight is what many people had before most people simply stopped thinking.
Now also show Californias water usage as they use water from lake mead as well yet have no restrictions or is water used for the increase demand on almonds toooooo important?
@Ann Hanover what the F do you know about WW2 you stupid broad
@Ann Hanover I actually am... I may do say rude things but I am very much Sharp and smoking intelligent.
So with that being said answer my question.
No we don't our water come from angeles crest reservoir and rain water we don't use lake mead
Wow. Real research/journalism. Great job!
Angel Park golf course uses recycled water and has done so for over a decade. Waste water is treated and piped to several golf courses in a delivery system separate from potable water systems. Hmmmm, I wonder why Ms. Spears failed to mention this?
Man avoided building in deserts and extreme cold. In the last two hundred years our arrogance decided to ignore millennia of city locations, we have pushed into deserts and drained our lakes and rivers to make it habitable. It’s a desert and fails to be adequate for support of human habitation. What do expect?
The truth is man did build in deserts, but our modern urban planning system that is highly reliant on high water use, car useage, gasoline, and other resources is UNSUSTAINABLE.
@@dustywaxhead when man built in the desert it was in small settlements around natural water sources. It is the water we are running out of, not gasoline or power. There was even a plan to bring water from Texas to California. It would have cost 100 billion dollars. It was voted down. We are robbing Peter to pay Paul. We should learn from our ancestors and those tribes that live on the edges of deserts. But we are to smart for that.
The question is, even if these joints closed down, water use in Las Vegas would still increase because the population keeps increasing and thus more houses (and everything else that goes with them) are being built. The solution would be to stop moving to Las Vegas and people to stop having babies. Before there were people in Vegas, lakes, lawns and golf courses did not exist. Venice canals only existed in Venice, and not in a Las Vegas Strip resort in a bone-dry desert. There are about 150,000 hotel rooms in Vegas. I doubt many guests are concerned with saving water in their rooms, since they don't live here, so we have 150,000+ (probably twice that) transient visitors to supply water to each day. If Lake Mead runs dry, that will solve the Las Vegas water use problem, since there will be no water to use. If you want to take a bath every day, forget it. Get used to taking an annual bath instead.
that is the real problem, with everything. water, energy, pollution, waste disposal, merchandise, everything. no matter how drastic we cut down on anything we are only prolonging the inevitable. we need a real solutions not bandaids.
Thank you for mentioning over-population. Almost NOBODY will face the reality that too many humans is the problem, not any fricken water shortage.
VIVA Las Vegas VIVA Las Vegas!
Chemical Toilets would help some if you lose your money there a trip to the potty is a natural reaction!
The solution is to conserve 25-50% system wide on the colorado river.
Take your pick: playing golf OR having enough water to drink. If you're a golfer, you're part of the problem!
Do you water your lawn ? Then your part of the problem also
@@ripemm5737 No, I do not have a lawn!
I love being on water restrictions here in Colorado, just so Nevada and California can waste it!
Las Vegas is the Poster Child for how an area can FAIL to manage its most precious resource. Given the Lake Meade status, these Big Users need to be shut down and lawn watering forbidden. Perhaps they can Hope that the rain and run-off return but it looks like many will be investing in a wasteland very few can live in.
My family of 4 uses less than 20 gallons per day. We have our own well, maybe people need to know where their water comes from so they can understand how hard it is to get it there.
Are you guys going to the bathroom outside?
Don’t tell to many people you have well .the big users will want it!
@@davidlockley2635 yeah no kidding! Put a garage over it make it look good.
The water table in Vegas gotta be really deep.
@@natureboy1313 not as deep as Nancy Hernandez or Geneva Hicks vagina.
I haven’t drank water in three days. We’re all good now I balanced it all out
Thank you.
But your urine is yellow and stinky and I don't think we allow that.
@@ivabigbotty9437 no
Everything you drink is water, except tar and Mercury ever liquid is made of water
@@lptvboy no it’s not. Shut up
Arizona has a different way of conservation of water by using "rock" lawns with mylar underlayment which feeds the reservoirs.
The problem with water waisting in Las Vegas is that people is not educated to save and conserve water if you tell your neighbor he is waisting water he will come after you and tell you to mind your own business ….🤔🤔🤔🤔
Why are they allowing all this building of new apartments, businesses, etc.?
I called the water department for water waste in this neighborhood and they did nothing
I bet they are overwhelmed. I see water waste every day in apartment complexes and keeping track of this probably requires money nobody has right now. It's up to us to be our own disciplined citizens. The apartment managers all know that they are wasting water and probably aren't being given permission to do anything about it from the landlords so we need again to focus on greedy landlords. They can decorate with rocks and not with so much grass and watering the parking lots.
@Suicide by Muslim No the guy is doing the right thing, if people weren't so selfish he wouldn't have to make the call in teh first place.
@Suicide by Muslim Living life like a normal human being is roaming like our ancestors. Playing golf, having lawns and swimming pools is artifical nonsense that isn't necessary.
@Suicide by Muslim Neanderthals were highly intelligent, thank you.
This was a avoidable thing. There could only be so much before the lake drops. They've gone way farther than that
What about the company that uses the underground water source for its battery pools out side las vegas 🤔 media controls the narrative
Who?
In door water usage by apartments (aka renters) should not be lumped in with 'water wasters' or 'excessive users'. All water used indoors, including apartment units, is cleaned and reused.
Back when I was a young man, I wanted to live ouy west. California, Las Vegas, Texas...
Thay was in the late 70`s early 80`s. I`m SO glad I stayed in good ol` Michigan.
Love that nobody is mentioning that Las Vegas gets 90 percent of its water from the lower colorado river system, and Cali gets a much lower percent of that (I don’t know the number exactly) but California still uses more than 20x the ammount that Nevada does.(from the lower colorado system)
What's your point?
It doesn't matter who uses the most water the whole southwest will become nothing but ghost towns before long.
That's because California has the water rights way before Las Vegas even became a railroad water stop.
"Droughts are for poor people. Do you think that JLo has a brown lawn? Extra water means extra class!"
A Cinderella Story
It's almost as if building a city in the desert wasn't a good idea!
It's almost as if 8 billion planet destroying humans was a bad idea for one small planet.
@@jamespoon2656 yeah, that too.
@@jamespoon2656 😂😂😂
Funny thing is that the people that surveyed the Colorado River in the late 1800's said that it wouldn't support any amount of population growth and that there would serious repercussions later on.
Citation needed...
@@shortattentionspangarage1312 John Wesley Powell also served as director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1881 to 1894. During his tenure he touched off controversy by advocating strict conservation of water resources in the developing states and territories of the arid West. “There is not enough water to irrigate all the lands,” he remarked at a Los Angeles congress of farmers and developers in October 1893. “I tell you gentlemen you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not enough water to supply the land.” Subsequent interstate conflicts over the water of the Colorado and other Western rivers proved Powell’s words to be prophetic
@@NarleyAdventures Back then the developers and politicians wanted growth and wouldn't listen, so much has changed.
I think this needs to be very clear to all of us living in Las Vegas so we can start to do something about it. California uses something like 12-15x the water WE use from Lake Mead for golf courses, fountains, pools, landscaping, etc. Californians grow Avocados, Almonds, Dairy Cows, Citrus, Pistachios even though they dont have the water resources to do it, Ontop of that they have all the same golf courses, ponds, pools with 10x the people. So they take our water and then we get the blame because a golf course in a desert doesnt make sense. Maybe growing Avocados and Almonds in a drought stricken, arid area (ALL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA), which requires you to pump water from another state, isnt a good idea. We aren't the issue, our use is somewhat sustainable, thought it could use alot of work. California needs to be shut out of the Colorado River water, they are killing the west. If they need water so fucking bad they should just build those desalinzation plants... Oh wait they spent like $5Billion on a bullet train that doesnt exsist and thats why they cant desalnize water. Bullshit. we are going to be forced from our homes because of this.
I'd rather see water used for produce that watering a golf course or filling a lake.
Huntington Beach voted against a desalinization plant. The big corps there like the cheap water from the Colorado.
Great answer. Yes time to make a change time to understand water is the most inportant thing not cars not money not job time to reflect about beeing a plane human
@@deedeebel1 this is more or less my point, its the kind of crops more than that they are growing crops. Food staples and necessary food items should be focused on. Dairy, almonds, avocados, and even wine at the quantity its produced is the issue. those crops arent suited for that enviornmet and thus take more water. so cal has been talking about water shortage and reduction since the 80s, but water usage continuted to climb. instead of trying to build a bullet train, they shouldve brokeground on desalinization plants. with that, we just have a smaller population here in nevada. for us to have a things like golfcourses providing 3 million people with access, is a bit different then providing 10 million people in LA county alone. but i digress, i dont agree with it regardless. none of that should be a thing in drought stricken areas in my opinion. this is all avoidable by simple forethought and simple adjustments. agriculture in cali doesnt need to stop, it needs to change. spraying water into the dry wind over crops is no longer a viable method for watering, yet it is still allowed in so cal. it is destroying the west, and has destroyed all of so cal as well. it cant continue to go on. we face two options, increase the cost of food as a result of increased water cost from building desalinization and no longer relying on the colorado as a primary means of water in California and Arizona as well, or we let the river run entirely dry, or very low (historically the colorado is a seasonal river, it would dry up entirely at times before dams were built.) If it does run dry, or we run out of drawable water, las vegas becomes a ghost town, So Cal will immediately go into a state of distress and crop production will be impossible entirely. we will kill the west, this is a bigger threat than Russia and China at the moment. This could displace over 60-100 million people over then next 10-20 years
stop the fake news
Yeah yeah …. keep building more houses and inviting the whole country to move here
Exactly!
It’s a free country lmao you cannot restrict American movement
Then you should move to the rust belt, ton of empty places to live there, cheap rent.
@@Moondoggy1941 And plenty of water. lol.
Maybe all businesses should move out than
god forbid not haveing a lawn in the middle of the desert
And golf courses
California and its transplants are using the most water combined
Makes no sense they have the ocean
Crazy
@@yourdaddy1643 do you know what an ocean is?
@@sentientflower7891 yea ask your girls
I am fairly sure that the largest consumer of water in any municipal system are the leaks in the system itself.
They say that about all systems....fix the loopholes. lol
You neglected to mention the "Data Storage Centers"! There are at least 2 of them in the Vegas area and another 1 or 2 in Henderson. They use water to cool the data towers, and from what I understand, each building uses in excess of one million gallons a month, that gets vaporized! Everyone wants their "CLOUD" storage, well, there's a cost!
Thank you for starting this investigative series. It’s interesting to know what private homes and HOAs are the biggest consumers of water and what they’re doing to conserve.
You believe the news. Good for you my November India golf golf alpha
I have a bridge on the Hudson for sale
Private homes and HOAs are NOT the biggest consumers of water...by a long shot. Did you even watch the video?
Most asinine decision regarding this dilemma that was made, constructing a “bathtub drain” at the bottom of Lake Mead so they could “drain it to the last drop”,
instead of maybe making other more effective plans of avoiding this sh*t show!
Lake Mead is not a lake... it is a Reservoir. The asinine are those who believe preventing what is inevitable is the solution.
The only solution to a growing demand and diminishing supply is... a new source.
Las Vegas will need to invest in desalination technology and infanstructure to pull water in from the Pacific or Gulf of California. Generating the electricity needed can be done with solar power . In fact, cali and arizona should do the same.
Does this sound crazy, unimaginable, impossible ?.... yeah....well so did the Hoover Dam
We are not in control of Lake Mead. Nevada only uses 4% of the water. California and Arizona use 96% of the water. Our water can't depend on what they do.
@@TheBandit7613 No but the government is! Go do your research! It's all about control!
@@TheBandit7613 WRONG. Las Vegas gets 90 percent of its water from the lake.
@@justayoutuber1906 You don't understand.
Out of all the water in the lake, 4% goes to Nevada, 35% goes to Arizona and the rest goes to California. Nevada doesn't even use the whole 4% share. Nevada saw this coming 40 years ago and took action then. AZ and CA didn't plan for this.
Nevada is fine.
Let's get rid of the swimming pools !
CA is draining LV.
There is plenty of water for LV, NV and AZ. CA needs to build desalination plants.
We need an update for 2022
Stop hating on people, it's legal, they can do as they please. SNWA needs to find new sources of water.
🤦♂️ wow. Find new water? You can't be serious
Damn shame the east side doesn’t have +250 parks, the community discrimination is real in Vegas. Weird because the entire city is a reflection of Las Vegas not just 1 region…
Anyone ever noticed Hendersons’ street lights are white but the rest of the valley is “cliche”?
Sad because we need green to cool this city down
Easy side gets zero love. It’s sad.
Hendersons are LED, the rest of Vegas is slowly getting LED.
I'm retired and bought an RV to travel. Now my only home. Since pandemic started I have been living completely of the grid. About 18 months now in the LV area. No electricity. No water. Solar has provided all the power I have required to use microwave, make coffee, watch TV over the airwaves and so on. I haul water back to refill RV fresh tank every couple of days. About 20-25 gallons per week. All I need to keep clean, wash dishes and operate toilet in bathroom.
Retired and living like that. I can only imagine what your RV looks like and smells like inside.
But u r self sufficient.
Just wondering , for what looks inevitable , How do you get mail ,. have an address , register vehicle ?
@@j.richards2346 Ha. PO Box in town. Same as many people you go to a PO box to get mail. Other than that, business as usual.
@@natureboy1313Well, quite comfortable actually. No smell. You perceptions might be a bit skewed. Anyway, just bought 35' sailboat in slip. So I can live aboard that also. Best of both worlds on the cheap in my opinion.
@@jasonfrodoman1316 Ha ! But doesn't your driver's licence need an address, not a P.O. box ?
I sincerely hope that the obscenity that is Las Vegas ceases to exist, soon.
Not to mention Lake Las Vegas having seven golf courses and they are all green
Blame the Unlimited Car Wash offer 😄
Most car washes use recycled water through out the day. They save good amount of water tbh. These golf courses are the most damages
I’m surprised that the crooked city officials allowed you to name those rich offenders. Usually the government goes out of their way to protect the rich criminals.
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT MY FRIEND
All big republican donors
Once Lake Mead’s water level drops below the intakes accessible to the California and Arizona water users, the rate of decline will drastically slow since the only intake still submerged will be the one that feeds Las Vegas. Then the city should cap inflow of outsiders to visitors only allowing for the growth in population to current residents’ family expansion until the drought is over decades from now. Southern Californians will then have to rethink the Desalination plant they just voted down.
Nevada could also get its own water since it also leeches off the the river feeding the lake you think is yours.
Don't even need to put a cap outside visitors. Cut back on tourist water wasting things like golf courses, casino water features, expansive outdoor pools. That will have the effect of cutting some tourism and leave a lot of the gambling income in place. Cap growth in housing. Prohibit non-native live landscaping. Put a progressive (exponential) fee structure in place for water consumption for both commercial and residential customers.
Gotta get those bodies out first! Yuck!
TO MANY PEOPLE MOVED TO LAS VEGAS! WTF! It’s now California, so sit back and watch the view!
After using a modest amount of water the cost of water should be raised progressively.
CA taking most of the water
Until water costs increases for customers, nobody will be compelled to save water. High water users will need a graduated scale for higher water usage. Double the cost for each 100,000 gallons used. At some point, even the billionaires won’t want to spend millions of dollars a year on water.
No, that will only hurt "normal" people and normal usage. Instead, do a volume-based price increase, if you are going to do any increase at all. No change in cost up to a certain usage level; if you go beyond that usage level, then a price increase. That's a million times more fair toward normal people who engage in normal use levels, while only increasing the cost on the rich who are most able to pay for their abnormally high usage levels.
@@TryGold Possibly, but the point is, if you use water extravagantly, you should pay way more, whatever scale is used. Using 100,000's or millions of gallons of water for what are effectively vacation homes has to stop. These billionaires don't give a shit, so the overusage penalty has to be excessive, so it doesn't do unnoticed by their administrators
Is desalinization out of the question? I hear talk of rising sea levels, glacier melting and global warming causing problems but nothing about using ocean water. Is it the process or the cost?
It costs a lot and burns a ton of energy so it's not really a good solution.
It will also change the salinity in the ocean, which may affect sea creatures.
It’s crazy expensive and not going to curb peoples bad habits. Best thing is to force people to conserve water by significantly increasing the cost of water to known wasters and getting rid of gold courses and artificial lakes, fountains and things like that. When people see their eater bills go up ten fold or even a hundred they will cut back.
@@jerryG-p3w We had that in Cali a few years back. I think they will have to do it again. The big push now is to replace grass in residential areas. At a minimum use recycled water on all the things you mentioned.
Those filters don’t remove the oil, radiation ☢️ and other toxins dumped into the water.
Imagine that. A desert running out of water. Who'd a thought?
Home users of water can reduce water use by 1)taking "navy" shower which means turn off water when you aren't rinsing, 2)allow clear waste to buildup in the toilet flushing only when solid waste is added (throw tissue paper into trash to avoid clogs), 3) wash/rinse dishes in dish pans or in low flow dish washer, 4) wash sheets/towels every other week, 5) try to wear outer clothes more than once, 6)convert grass yards to rock, 7) don't plant flowers that need watering, 8) wash your car monthly at a recycling car wash instead of weekly. Buying a white car helps because it shows dirt less and 9) try to wash your hair every 3rd day instead of daily. We have low flow faucets/showers but still don't turn tap on full blast for most applications. Tough times!
All great ideas. Unfortunately, the Wealthy will do none of those things. Make grass illegal everywhere it never grew naturally. They can't visit a park with indigenous plants? Surely they can make artificial grass that can be used for sports fields and golf courses.............They just don't want to. Figure out what the average family uses and jack the prices once someone exceeds the average. Also WTF is Lake Las Vegas? Is everyone in the southwest in charge out of of their frigging minds?
Well, just get rid of the golf courses, the lake and the casinos and it'll save a lot of water. That'll really HELP everything.
Those are owned by rich Republicans. That is their source of income...and the states...
So foreign rich people get water while millions of locals suffer? Sounds like a normal day in America
Crying about water for 30 years... as they continue to build. Dont wanna hear it. Self inflicted wound.
Do something about the illegals. All day you see them with giant water tanks parked in a commercial lot washing cars...
Desert no lawns.
What are you thinking.
You know..each winter, the east coast has millions upon millions of frozen water they don't want.
This country can build a pipeline over 2000 miles to carry oil but not water. Hmmm. Thats something to think about.
Who wants to guess this is all being done on purpose by a certain few?
Yep
yeah, because of the flat earth and evil vaccines....
I am grateful to no longer be in Nevada. I was there for almost 15 years before moving in fall of 2020. Back in 2007 they were having this exact conversation...not much improvement was ever made, because Vegas will always be a tourist economy. They do not want sustainable, economically viable jobs. They city much rather residents pay the consequences for that green grass..that should not even be there while they destroy the natural desert environment.
It’s almost like the homebuilders know they need to build homes while there’s still water and everything is at top dollar.. they’re building like crazy!! Home prices will drop to zero when that water runs out!! It’s gonna happen sooner then later I’d imagine..
As long as developers keep giving money to the GOP, they will allow them to build, build, build
@@justayoutuber1906 Nevada is a blue state….
Houses with no full time occupants should get 0 water.
Ration it. Water is an absolute necessity. It's not like a new set of golf clubs which you can live without.