They are leaving the grass.
Sin City area officials are pushing for the nation’s first ban on “non-functional” turf, which is not intended for people to walk on, as they seek to boost conservation efforts amid conditions of even dry.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority has recently estimated that the Las Vegas metropolitan area has nearly eight square miles of “non-functional lawn” that no one walks on, including street socks, housing developments, and office parks.
“The only people who have set foot on the grass in the middle of a road system are the people who mow the grass,” said Justin Jones, a Clark County commissioner in Las Vegas who is part of the board. of administration of authority.
The board is asking the Nevada state legislature to ban decorative grass.
Jones described the ornamental grass as “mute” given the limited water supply of the desert region.
Removing this purely cosmetic green would reduce the area’s water consumption by 15 percent annually, which would save about 14 gallons of water per person each day, according to the group.
This would help Vegas combat increasingly dry conditions, including a record 240 consecutive days with no measurable rainfall last year.
The agency has been working to encourage conservation in a city synonymous with excess since 2003, when it banned developers from installing water-sucking lawns in new developments.
Although the lawns of the existing properties were preserved, the agency offers its owners $ 3 per square meter to uproot their lawns.
Jones assured homeowners that his proposed legislation does not target their backyards.
“To be clear, we’re not going to look for your average homeowner’s garden,” he said.
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