John Hollenhorst reporting
Suppose someone paid you serious money to quit watering your lawn and to stop mowing your grass. That's exactly what they're doing in Las Vegas, and 25,000 homeowners have taken the offer. Could it work in Utah?
In Las Vegas they're going green by getting rid of the green, tearing out lawns. It's another kind of payout in Sin City -- Cash for Grass. Residents get $1.50 per square foot to get rid of their turf.
Resident Beverly Hardy says, "I'm looking forward to not worrying about having it mowed every week."
Doug Bennett, with the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said, "You got to have a carrot. And I think here in Las Vegas, we use both the carrot and the stick."
The stick is tough water conservation laws; the carrot is a $90-million jackpot over the last seven years. For a typical lawn, the payout is $2,000-$3,000 and up to switch from water-guzzling grass to a water-saving landscape of drought-tolerant plants.
Randy Harris, with Western Foliage Landscape, says, "A, it's convenient; B, it saves water. So it seems to be the buzz in the valley, saving water."
About 100-million square feet of Vegas turf has gone bye-bye. "We're talking about approximately 1,700 football fields, or a strip of sod that would stretch halfway around the planet," Bennet said.
With all that green grass disappearing, the savings have been amazing -- about 20-billion gallons of water in the last several years.
Could the idea spread to Utah? Ted Wilson, with the Utah Rivers Council, says, "It's going to take a few years for the politics of this state to catch up with that, but I think it's a good idea."
Some say it's economically impractical in Utah. Las Vegas comes out ahead by avoiding expensive water projects. Water is cheap in Utah, so agencies would lose money. But the Utah Rivers Council says a looming water crisis could change that. "I think in the future it's bigger than the oil crisis, as far as this community and the west is concerned. It's going to be huge," Wilson said.
For now, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But some day, people elsewhere may cash out by ripping out their lawn.
Before water officials pay the cash, they inspect the new landscaping to make sure it meets certain standards. Bare dirt with an old wagon wheel is not acceptable.
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
