Present Efforts

The majority of the southwestern United States is faced with some form of a water crisis. Efforts have been made to deal with this crisis both on a local and regional scale. Many of the large-scale solutions, such as the ideas put forth by the Colorado River Water Consultants (CRWC), are not cost effective or would be impractical on such a large scale. One solution the CRWC puts forth is water imports using ocean routes, which includes towing icebergs, water tankers transporting water from Alaska, or a pipeline from the Columbia River. There are many important issues with each of these proposed solutions, the most important being the amount of fuel it would require to carry any of them out on a large scale. This would create significant and expensive technical problems in the preparation of the infrastructure needed to resolve these. Due to a lack of significant regional solutions the issue of the water crisis in the southwestern United States has fallen to states and in some cases cities.

Increase Allotment through Recycling

 Las Vegas reuses about sixty percent of the water it takes from Lake Mead.  Most of the water which is not able to be recycled is lost to consumptive outdoor uses.  Although outdoor water in the entire Las Vegas Valley drains through the Las Vegas Wash and back to Lake Mead, most of the water evaporates or enters groundwater before making it back to the reservoir.  Therefore, the best way to increase recycled water is to decrease the amount of water used outdoors. 

Decreasing Individual Consumption

The city of Las Vegas consumes 97% of the water used in the valley, 60% of which is used for outdoor purposes. The ways we plan to decrease individual use are through educating the residents about saving, reducing, and reusing water. The second way we plan to accomplish this is through incentives to the public for reducing their outdoor use and consumptive uses. The third way to accomplish this is through strict enforcement of current water use laws and possibly the addition of new ones. The last way we plan to see the reduction of individual use will be a more aggressive use of the tiered water pricing system.

Water Permitting

   Las Vegas is a water stressed city with an almost fixed allotment of water (see water recycling and present efforts). Because of this water stress, it makes sense to make a water budget. Water permitting would allow Las Vegas to make conscious and active choices about where its water is used. Because the city controls the amount of permits issued, they can also control the total water used. By controlling total water used, total population growth can be limited to a rate that matches the amount of available water.

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