They lay down the lawn.
Officials in the Sin City area are pushing for a ban on ‘non-functional’ grass – grass not meant for humans to walk on – while trying to boost conservation efforts amid bone-dry drought.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority recently estimated that the Las Vegas metropolitan area has nearly eight square miles of “non-functional grass” that no one walks on, including in street Medians, residential areas and office parks.
“The only people who have ever set foot on grass in the middle of a road network are people who mow the grass,” said Justin Jones, a Clark County commissioner in Las Vegas who sits on the authority’s board.
The council is calling on the Nevada state legislature to ban decorative grass.
Jones called the ornamental grass “stupid” given the limited water supply in the desert.
Removing that purely cosmetic greenery would cut the area’s water use by about 15 percent per year – a savings of about 14 gallons of water per person per day, the group estimates.
That would help Vegas as it faces increasingly drier conditions, including a record 240 consecutive days with no measurable rainfall last year.
The agency has been working to promote conservation in a city synonymous with excess since 2003, when it banned developers from installing water-absorbing lawns in new developments.
While the lawns of existing properties were grandfather, the agency is offering their owners $ 3 per square foot to uproot their lawns.
Jones assured homeowners that their proposed legislation does not target their yards.
“To be clear, we’re not going to get behind your average homeowner’s backyard,” he said.
With Wires