A couple years ago I was out to dinner in the Las Vegas Valley. This wasn’t a fancy five-star place on The Strip, just a no-frills pasta joint in a suburban strip mall.
The server was a middle-aged man in a necktie and vest. He came up to the table, greeted us, and asked for our drink order. I said water. He said: sparkling or Lake Mead?
Of course my restaurant server knew exactly where the tap water came from.
Lake Mead, the Colorado River’s largest reservoir, and the biggest human-made lake in the country, is a short drive from the valley’s casino resorts. Same for Hoover Dam.
You often hear the river referred to as a lifeline for its users. For the more than 2 million people in the Las Vegas metro that’s completely accurate. The city is one of the driest urban areas in the world. Cities in the eastern U.S. average 40 to 50 inches of precipitation a year. Phoenix averages 8. Las Vegas gets 4.
NEWS CLIP: “Tonight, new concerns on how a potential water crisis could impact the Silver State, as cuts to our water allotment are being announced for 2023.”
NEWS CLIP: “A record-breaking dry spell right now is hitting the valley and today now marks 151 days without measurable rain.”
For decades now science has shown that climate change is causing the Colorado River’s gap between supply and demand to grow. At the same time though, something surprising has been happening here -- Las Vegas keeps getting bigger while its total water use is on the decline.
How did they do it? They zeroed in on a singular enemy: grass.
From KUNC, this is ‘Thirst Gap: Learning To Live With Less On The Colorado River.’ I’m Luke Runyon. This is episode four, “A Crackdown in Sin City.”
Not far off the Las Vegas Strip, the valley quickly transitions from glitz and neon lights into a collection of gated communities, stucco homes with clay tile roofs.
BRONSON MACK: “Maybe we'll step up here.”
LUKE RUNYON: “Yeah, yeah.”
The kinds of suburban neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs and tidy landscaping AKA ground-zero for lots and lots of grass. And on this morning, Kurtis Hyde of Par 3 Landscaping was taking pleasure in ripping a whole lot of it out.
KURTIS HYDE: “I've lived in Las Vegas for 23 years and we are at a HOA community called Desert Shores, and we are doing a large conversion of turf, removing the grass on their main entrance road to the community.”
Did you catch that? This neighborhood is called Desert Shores. There are a few man made lakes here, and some homes actually come with lakefront views. Anyway, Kurtis and I were on a wide median between the sidewalk and the street, standing on a pile of rock his crew had just laid down. Small shrubs and flowering bushes were scattered throughout.
HYDE: “The gold colored plants are called lantana. The future hedge back here is called bay laurel. That's the same plant that if you want to put a bay leaf in your soup you can pluck off one of those leaves and let it dry out and put it in there. Down here is red carpet roses.”
Up until just a couple weeks ago, this whole section was bright green grass. Kurtis’ teams ripped it out. And across the street from us another grassy expanse was lined up for the guillotine.
HYDE: “So we turned that water off on that grass about three weeks ago and we're hand watering the trees in the interim. This project here is about two acres of turf removal.”
RUNYON: “I mean, you can see how fast it changes just from not being watered for a few weeks. I mean, it's beige, brown.”
HYDE: “Yeah. I mean, Las Vegas without -- you'd be shocked, to keep grass alive in the summertime takes six days a week of watering.”
This homeowner’s association didn’t suddenly get a taste for desert landscaping. This transition is being forced. This type of grass -- what’s been dubbed “nonfunctional turf” -- will be illegal in the Las Vegas valley in just a few years.
HYDE: “It's probably nonfunctional if the only guy ever on it is the person mowing it and there's a whole bunch of grass like that where it's like, it's literally only for aesthetics.”
A couple years ago, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency for the entire Las Vegas metro, went to the Nevada legislature to ban decorative grass -- the kind you find in the middle of a roundabout or at the entrance to a business park. It all has to be removed by 2026.
But this ban is just the latest blow to the grassy lawns some Las Vegans hold dear. For the last twenty years, slowly and steadily the amount of grass here has been on the decline. First came the incentives to rip out existing grass. 40 cents a square foot. Then a dollar. Then 2. Then 3. In 2004 the water authority banned front yards in new housing developments. Then passed restrictions on backyards for new homes. Golf courses were put on tighter water budgets. And now, the agency says, it’s time to mandate valleywide rip out of this nonfunctional turf, the splash of green just for a splash of green. Soccer fields and parks, the types of grass kids play on, are safe for now. And Kurtis says, since the ban was passed the phone at his landscaping company is ringing off the hook.
HYDE: “It's accelerated for us several times over. We are constantly getting requests for new designs on communities we maintain, and some communities, like Summerlin, is trying to get it done way before the mandate comes to term at the end of 2026.”
Most of his current work is with large homeowners’ associations, or HOAs, like the one we’re in. Historically HOAs were among the valley’s most stubborn when it came to water conservation. Kurtis says they feared that swapping out grass for desert plants would make their neighborhoods ugly and their homes less valuable. And while Kurtis says most are coming around to the idea of Vegas losing its lawns he still runs into plenty of people who haven’t made peace with it.
HYDE: “I think when people think of xeriscape, they think of the old, you know, white, ugly rock with lava rock and a wagon wheel and a cow skull and like three cactus. It is a mindset change where people -- and we still struggle with that. There's people who, prior to this mandate, there'd be HOAs who would literally say, ‘We've gotten rid of some grass and we're keeping every blade that we have left.’ And they'll get pretty emotional about it.”
Sometimes while Kurtis and his crew are busy at work, taking out sod or laying down rocks, people passing by will voice their annoyance at the changes.
HYDE: “There's always the detractors, right? The dog walkers who come by and, ‘Where's my dog going to go pee’ or whatever. And so but even then, even them, you know, we all understand we live in a desert and we've been in a long drought and the population is growing here and all over the southwest.”
Kurtis grew up in northern Nevada, in a small ranching community northeast of Reno. Living in one of the country’s most arid states, he says a water conservation ethic was instilled in him at a young age, and then made even stronger in his faith. He’s Mormon. And says his belief that God created the Earth means he has to take care of it.
HYDE: "We believe in -- that the Lord provided all of the good in the Earth for us to use, but to use wisely and sustainably. And so I just think that, when I'm out in the beautiful creation, riding my mountain bike, I'm constantly just saying, 'Thank you, God.' It's amazing for this beautiful place. And so do I want to abuse it and destroy it? All so I could, you know, the tragedy of the commons, it's all mine and I want to take it before somebody else can take it? No, I want it to be there for generations to come."
Kurtis says that kind of thinking is what the entire Colorado River basin could use a dose of. The river is in its current dire state because everyone’s gotten used to having it all, giant green lawns included. And while the river grows smaller at least Las Vegans can say they’re ready to make some sacrifices, offering up roll after roll of dead sod to try to bring the river into balance.
HYDE: “We're a city, a large city placed in a precarious place where we depend upon that Colorado River to survive. And so we've got to do our part.”
But some sacrifice and change is easier said than done. After our interview and before I took off, I was curious how Kurtis the landscaper kept his own home. When new developments had their grass banned almost 20 years ago plenty of older homes had their lawns grandfathered in. So far there hasn’t been the political will to reach into those yards just yet. So I was curious.
RUNYON: “I don't know if this is a personal question, but do you have any grass at your house?”
HYDE: “I do have grass at my house, yes. And that's actually not part of the mandate. Residential, new construction grass is not allowed on front or backyards. And with my home, it's an older home and I have grass. And it's an area where my kids spend a lot of time playing volleyball and spike ball and, but yes, I do have grass. I almost feel like a hypocrite.”
But Kurtis is far from the only one struggling with how to feel about his relationship to green lawns.
LINDA MARSTON: “I mean, 25 years we're here, try to correct it. And then we get a fine for $80. I mean, really, come on.”
That’s coming up after this break.
One day, when John Entsminger was driving home from work, he had an epiphany.
JOHN ENTSMINGER: “As far as I can remember, it was almost this personal awakening.”
His commute from the Las Vegas suburbs to his office closer to the city center takes him down the Summerlin Parkway. And at the time little decorative lawns dotted the median that sat between the four-lane highway.
ENTSMINGER: “And you would go by these things at four in the afternoon and see these big, you know, sprinklers going to irrigate something that literally had a crash fence around it.”
He’d imagine the landscapers lugging mowers across the road, up and over the fence to maintain this tiny green island. He’d think of the Colorado River being sucked up and sprayed on this grass no one used. It’s only purpose was to be a flash of green for commuters as they zipped by on their way to and from work.
ENTSMINGER: “And it just really started to become clear in my mind that that sort of nonfunctional turf was a luxury we couldn't afford. And I guess if I were just some Joe off the street, maybe it would have ended there. But I happen to be the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and had a really big staff who, you know, was on board with starting to push the message.”
His team at the Southern Nevada Water Authority coined the term “nonfunctional turf” and it spread across the West. All of a sudden, we were classifying the grass that grows in our cities. The kinds that are useful and good and the kinds that are wasteful and bad. And John says, having a term for something we all see and understand, but haven’t given serious thought, was a real game changer.
ENTSMINGER: “Man, once you see it, you can't unsee it because it had been just kind of normalized here, ‘80s, ‘90s, 2000s. But once you see what a truly offensive use of water that is in the Mojave Desert, it's tough to unsee.”
Now at this point, you might be thinking, “Ok, grass, we got it. What about all the other water uses in Vegas?” Well, John says outdoor use is really the entire game when it comes to water conservation for a city like Las Vegas. Because it’s so close to Lake Mead, all of the water used indoors -- for showers, washing machines, flushing toilets, keeping those giant casinos humming on the Strip -- all of that water gets treated and returned to the reservoir. No net loss. The loss comes when water evaporates, or is sucked up by plants, like grass.
ENTSMINGER: “As early as the ‘90s we were incentivizing people to take out turf. But really you know upped those incentives to now we've removed 5 million square feet of turf just in calendar year 2022.”
And he says if you add it all up, since 2002 they’ve removed enough grass here to lay an 18 inch wide piece of sod around the circumference of the Earth. Everyone thinks of Las Vegas as a city of excess, but John says when it comes to water that just isn’t true anymore.
ENTSMINGER: “And it shows, right? That's what's allowed us to add 750,000 new residents since 2002 to and be using 26% less Colorado River water today than we were 20 years ago.”
To John, this is the path forward not just Vegas, but for the entire region -- using less, while growing in population. His agency recently doubled down on this idea and hit pause on a plan to pipe in water from a groundwater aquifer hundreds of miles away in northern Nevada. The long-planned project would’ve cost billions to build. John says paying for conservation, and living within their means, just makes more sense.
Now, grass isn’t the only outdoor use they’re targeting. His agency is limiting pool sizes and restricting extravagant water features. Limits on evaporative cooling are next for big box stores and high-rise buildings.
The water restrictions do have some critics, like some owners of the valley’s luxury golf resorts or companies that design and build extravagant swimming pools. But for the most part, he says these conservation programs have been able to slowly convince even the most stubborn residents of this desert metropolis to conserve.
ENTSMINGER: “It is very popular as long as it's, and this is important, as long as it's everyone, right? As long as no sectors are being given a free pass, as long as everyone's expected to contribute, you know, we have very high favorability ratings on our conservation programs, but as with everything else in life, 100% of the people don’t agree on anything.”
DEVYN CHOLTKO: “Hello.”
RUNYON: “Hi. I’m Luke.”
CHOLTKO: “Luke, Devyn, nice to meet you.”
RUNYON: “Nice to meet you, how it’s going?”
CHOLTKO: “It’s good. Busy day so far. Yeah.”
To get a sense of how Las Vegas’s restrictions are playing out on the ground and see just how willing residents are to make the sacrifice, riding along with someone like Devyn Choltko is a good place to start.
RUNYON: “I love the car. I was just commenting as you were driving up.”
CHOLTKO: “It's quite loud. You can't miss it.”
When I met her in June 2021, Devyn drove what looked like a police car... all navy and white with flashing lights on top. “WATER PATROL” in big block letters on both sides.
CHOLTKO: “People see us, that's for sure. They don't miss the vehicle at all.”
Choltko worked as a water waste investigator for the Las Vegas Valley Water District and her team was one more arm of the valley’s water supply tightening. The job isn’t about ripping out grass. It’s about making sure any of the grass that’s left is being watered correctly.
CHOLTKO: “So typically what we do is we go throughout the Las Vegas Valley, um, city limits and look for water waste, whether that be a, you know, too much water leaving the property or a broken sprinkler or any sort of malfunction, which could be a leak, broken sprinkler, broken drip emitter, watering on the wrong days or at the wrong time.”
She is, in essence, a water cop. One of 19 investigators across the valley. And even though everyone I talked to had been saying just how well received all these water restrictions had been, change is hard, even if it’s just adjusting the timing of your sprinkler system. So, I asked to do a ridealong to get a sense of how this kind of enforcement was being received in the community.
CHOLTKO: “Here we go. This isn't where we're supposed to go, but this is an issue.”
And within minutes, we had our first violator.
CHOLTKO: “This is HOA turf running right now, and there's too much water leaving the property at the moment. So we're going to get out of the car, throw our lights on and document the spray and flow violation is what we call it. So this is just too much runoff from the property.”
RUNYON: “It’s coming into the car.”
CHOLTKO: “It's literally coming into the car.”
We were next to a patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street in a fancy homeowner’s association. Devyn pulled out her smartphone and pointed it directly at the stream of water flowing off the grass, down the gutter and eventually into a storm drain.
CHOLTKO: “For something like this, we would let them know kind of where we're at, and then we videotape the violation for proof. So, water waste investigator 9393. It is Tuesday, June 15th at 8:07. I am at the entrance of the Ritz Cove community.”
She walked the length of the gutter, captured the video, took down the number on the water meter and then logged all of that into a dashboard computer in the car. This was a first-time violation for this particular meter. They’ll get a warning. The next will bring an $80 fine. Then $160. And it keeps doubling until you hit $1,200.
CHOLTKO: “And then we're off.”
RUNYON: “This is exciting.”
CHOLTKO: “And this is all day. This is all day long. So if you turn around and see now the other corner is now irrigating. So, we're leaving. We've documented the issue for this meter and it's still running.”
We make a couple more stops, mostly just warnings. And then we pull up to a house, another spray and flow violation. Devyn gets out of the car to video it, but it’s the neighbors who see the water patrol car and want to talk.
CHOLTKO: “All right, so we have a customer or person over here who's got some questions, so we'll see what they have to say. Hi, sir.”
Homeowners Raymond and Linda Marston were out on their front lawn.
LINDA MARSTON: “So after I got my first violation notice, I called my landscaper. He adjusted. Okay. Then I got my mail yesterday and have a heart attack that they're fining me.”
The Marstons were not happy. They’d received a fine in the mail. An $80 spray and flow violation. They were overwatering the yard and too much was flowing off their property.
So today, they had their landscaper over to adjust their sprinkler system. Devyn suggested they should try watering in short-bursts, a couple minutes at a time over the course of a few hours.
CHOLTKO: “It's just a recommendation. Ultimately, you guys are responsible for the water leaving your property. If there's still water leaving your property at 3 minutes, then you still need to cut back and water, water more times for less amount of time if that makes sense.”
L. MARSTON: “So what you're saying is we can still get fined?”
CHOLTKO: “Yes. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, you're still responsible. Like this is still your water leaving the property, you know? So we're giving you tools to make good changes, but you guys still have to make sure that the water isn't --”
L. MARSTON: “See, even when it just went off a little, little bubble come out on the sidewalk. I mean, come on.”
While Devyn chatted about the irrigation system’s timer with the Marstons’ landscaper, I stood next to Linda, holding my microphone. She asked who I was. I said I was a journalist doing a story about water in Las Vegas. Her eyes lit up and said, “Oh good, write all this down.”
L. MARSTON: “How much more can you do? How much more can you do? With all the water waste everywhere out here, give me a break.”
RUNYON: “You feel like it's small.”
L. MARSTON: “Yeah. I mean, 25 years we're here, try to correct it. And then I get a fine for $80. I mean, really, come on.”
Ultimately, cooler heads prevailed. Devyn said she’d set up an educational visit with the Marstons. They seemed genuinely interested in not being wasteful. They just didn’t think the tiny amount running off their property mattered in the grand scheme of things.
What made this whole stop so illustrative to me is that this is what conversations about the future of water in the southwest sound like. Not just in suburban neighborhoods in Las Vegas, but among all 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River. What one person feels is a small insignificant use of water to another is egregious. Everyone feels like their own use is completely justified. Other people’s use? That’s up for debate.
Vegas is far from the only western city feeling the pinch of water scarcity. Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Albuquerque all rely on the shrinking river in some way. Each of those cities will have to find their own path toward matching a declining supply to its residents’ demands. The well-worn, decades-old programs in Vegas could provide them a roadmap.
But even that’s easier said than done, and spending just a few days in Las Vegas makes that very clear.
Next time on Thirst Gap, we head to the Navajo Nation.
CRYSTAL TULLEY-CORDOVA: “The challenge is that many people think that things are etched in stone. And when you have that mentality of things that are etched in stone, it's like, ‘Oh, things are not able to change from the past.'”
Tribes hold rights to a significant amount of the river’s water, but haven’t been able to use them. And big questions over tribal water recently found their way to the Supreme Court.
SHAY DVORETSKY: “The United States thinks that it alone decides whether it has made good on its promises. But that's not how promises work.”
That’s in episode five, “First in Time.”
Thirst Gap is a production of KUNC, brought to you by the Colorado Water Center and the Colorado State University Office of Engagement and Extension, with additional support from the Walton Family Foundation and the Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder. It was written and reported by me, Luke Runyon. Editing by Johanna Zorn. Our theme song was composed by Jason Paton, who also sound designed and mixed the episode. Ashley Jefcoat, Jennifer Coombes and Natalie Skowlund are our digital editors. Sean Corcoran is KUNC’s news director. Tammy Terwelp is KUNC’s president and CEO.
Special thanks to: Alex Hager, Elliot Ross, Stephanie Daniel, Desmond O’Boyle, Robert Leja, Kim Rais and Jen Prall.
To learn more about the Colorado River, go to kunc.org/thirstgap or check out the show notes for a link.