LAS VEGAS -- How worried is this city getting about water? Tom Warden answers the question by driving the streets of a sprawling community called Summerlin.
He passes a gleaming row of suburban-style homes abiding by a strict new rule: no lawns.
The gateway at Promontory, part of the Las Vegas development called Summerlin, features a converted fountain. A Photo held shows the fountain when it had water. Conservation measures during the drought prohibit decorative fountains outside the tourist corridor.
(Steve Marcus For The Washington Post)
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He points to sculpted fountains that were built to give the place a touch of class. They have been turned off indefinitely.
He stops by a traffic circle carpeted with about 100,000 square feet of lush green grass. Landscapers are rushing to replace it with rocks and desert plants.
"This problem is coming at us like a freight train," said Warden, a vice president for the developer of Summerlin, a community of 34,000 homes along the western edge of the city. "No one here has ever seen it this dry."
In the throes of a prolonged drought, and growing at runaway speed across barren desert, Las Vegas is having a hard time these days reconciling its big dreams with an unforgiving new fact of life: It is running out of water.
The rest of the West, which has been afflicted by the drought for about five years, is watching its predicament with anxiety.
Some scientists say the drought may be the worst to strike the region in centuries. If it persists for several more years, the seven western states whose shared lifeline for water is the Colorado River could see their supplies threatened, too -- and face some of the same pressures that Las Vegas is feeling. The river's water level is at its lowest point in at least 100 years.
Lake Mead, the reservoir that collects some of the river's flow and that holds nearly all of the city's supply, also keeps evaporating amid the drought. The lake, which has dropped about 75 feet in the past few years, is now only half-full.
If its water level declines two more feet, which is almost certain to occur by the end of the year, Las Vegas is likely to declare its first drought emergency.
It already feels as though one exists. The Southern Nevada Water Authority plans to spend $32 million over the next year offering residents rebates to give up their grass. It is paying $1 per square foot -- double the price it set two years ago. On average, a football field of turf is being ripped up every day.
That is not enough. Here and in other cities around the Las Vegas Valley, authorities desperate to improve conservation are raising water rates on homeowners and businesses, restricting the use of lawn sprinklers, cracking down on car washes and threatening water-guzzling golf courses with fines.
Authorities also are launching elaborate advertising campaigns, in English and Spanish, describing the drought in dire terms and urging residents to curtail their water use. On some bus stop signs, the plea is blunt: "Join the Crusade."
Some communities are even contemplating covering parks and playgrounds with artificial turf -- but that idea is provoking intense debate. Some parents fear their children are bound to get burns from fake grass during the scorching days of summer in Las Vegas. Others dread cleaning up after dogs.
