A friend wrote this article about water use in Las Vegas a few years ago. Even though it's not exactly recent, between our ongoing coverage of lawns and water use and a guest rant about Vegas, we thought we'd serve it up. The reporter obtained records about the top 100 residential water hogs in Las Vegas. She contacted as many of them as she could to ask them about their astonishing water use--millions of gallons per year as opposed to 180,000 gallons for the median home.
And what do you think is to blame for all that water use?
Although he was busy preparing for the big Playboy Weekend, George Maloof, No. 83 on the list, made it a point to call us back. He seemed genuinely disturbed to hear he used 2.1 million gallons at his Innisbrook home last year. "I find it hard to believe I'm on that list," Maloof said. "I'm a single guy. I'm not home that much. I don't even have a family." He has five bedrooms, six bathrooms and a pool on almost half an acre. "But nothing crazy. I take a shower twice a day, morning and night. I don't cook. I'm a single guy...no big fountain...no lake. I have a lot of lawn--that's probably what it is."
After interviewing as many of the top 100 as she can, considering that a frightful number of them are in jail or off hiding in some private nation-state, she concludes with:
We'll leave with this parting thought from J.C. Davis at the water district:
"If they have grass in a place where it only gets walked on by someone pushing a mower, then we'd like people to consider replacing that turf with plants that can be watered by drip. People have the idea that desert landscaping means 10 tons of rock and a cow skull. But it can be more lush and interesting than lawn. You've got height, you've got dimension, you've got shading. And you can cut your water use by 75 percent."
read the whole thing here: www.lasvegasmercury.com.
Now THAT is great journalism - actually investigating and getting out there to find root causes.
Posted by: Kathy J., Washington Gardener | August 09, 2006 at 08:39 AM
I continue to be stunned that anyone can find a monoculture of uniform green turf to be aesthetically superior to a swath of diverse, textural, colorful, habitat-forming vegetation. And if it's in harmony with the local climate, it become that much more beautiful and desireable. Murder your f**kin' lawn!
Posted by: Billy Goodnick | December 27, 2007 at 01:57 PM