| Valerie Hamilton |
LAS VEGAS (dpa) – On a scorching, 41-degree-Celsius summer afternoon in Las Vegas, Robert Calvin patrolled suburban streets in a hulking white pickup on the lookout for the city’s public enemy number one: Water waste.
America’s driest city is 14 years into a historic drought, even as its population continues to grow, stretching water resources that were tight to begin with.
Las Vegas already recycles its indoor wastewater – from showers to toilets – reusing nearly half its total water consumption. But as the city grows and water supplies shrink, it needs to target outdoor water use that accounts for more than half of the remainder.
A decade ago, it decided to put the squeeze on outdoor water thieves like mistimed lawn sprinklers, dripping fountains and faulty plumbing by assigning a team of water waste investigators – water cops – to seek the leaks.
“There!” Calvin pointed out a thin stream of water trickling along the kerb, its edges already evaporating in the heat.
Cactus, mesquite, gravel and artificial turf in a Las Vegas front garden that require almost no artificial watering
Water cop Robert Calvin seeks the source of water spilled on a Las Vegas street on a 41-degree-Celsius summer afternoon. He patrols on the lookout for the city’s public enemy number one: Water waste. PHOTOS: DPA
“Irrigation running! This is the exciting stuff,” he said, and set off to find the culprit.
In the desert, water waste “makes a big impression on you,” Calvin said as he drove. The 28-year-old grew up in Las Vegas, and in his lifetime the city has woken up to the gap between the water it possesses and the water it is using.
Las Vegas means “the meadows,” and it describes the desert oasis fed by natural springs that drew 19th-century settlers to stay. But the city of two million long ago outgrew its water resources and now depends on the Colorado River for 90 per cent of its water.
With water supplies constrained historically by a tiny allocation of the river’s resources and under further pressure from the drought, Las Vegas has had no choice but to get serious about saving.
In the last 20 years, the casino capital known internationally for its excesses has cut water use by a third – even as its population grew by more than 25 per cent – transforming itself into a surprising model of water sustainability.
Its water recycling programme means everything from hotel showers to the fantasy fountains and canals of Vegas’ landmark casinos flow with hand-me-down H2O. The city offers rebates and coupons for evaporation-proof pool covers and recycling car washes.
Restaurants don’t even serve water unless customers ask.
Spurred by cash incentives, homeowners have ripped out more than half of all grass lawns, saving an average 2,240 litres per square metre per year and remaking the city’s incongruously green landscape into one of desert shrubs and streets decorated with scrap-metal palms “because they don’t need any water,” Calvin said.
Calvin said he has replaced his own lawn with desert bushes and mesquite trees, and proudly proclaims himself “stingy”.
“I don’t water a lot, and I’m always yelling at my kids to turn off the faucet when they brush their teeth,” he said.
But there’s work yet to be done. Las Vegas still consumes a net 446 litres per person daily – nearly triple that of a comparable place like Germany with 120 litres.
Much of that goes to keeping outdoor landscaping alive in a city that gets just 11 centimeters of rain yearly – compared to Germany’s average 70 – so that’s where water authorities are looking to save every last drop.
And that’s where the water cops come in.
The incriminating trickle spotted by Calvin wound through blocks of tidy suburban homes, many fronted by spiky cacti set in “lawns” of plastic turf or rosy-gray gravel, but some still brilliantly, defiantly green.
It led him straight to the culprit: automatic sprinklers – forbidden in the daytime heat – raining decadently over lush, green grass and soaking the sidewalk in front.
“That’s going to evaporate before it hits the sewer,” Calvin said, shaking his head. He pulled out a video camera and began documenting the scene.
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