Global warming will heat up simmering Las Vegas, stretch water

By ANGIE WAGNER=

Associated Press Writer=

LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Before dawn, when the neon still glows and the rest of the city sleeps, the water trickle begins miles from the famous Strip. Slow and steady, it swells into a stream, easing down a quiet neighborhood street by the time the investigator arrives.

Dennis Gegen parks his white pickup truck, grabs his video camera and begins his case outside the stucco home. Efficient and almost unnoticed, he inspects sprinklers and the flow from the leaky lawn.

"Sometimes you can follow something like this for miles," he says, pointing to a tiny flow.

He hangs a white-and-yellow violation notice on the front doorknob.

This, he says, is the home of a water waster.

Spying on wasteful homeowners seems out of place in a city where casino fountains dip and twirl to tunes like "Singin' in the Rain" and golf courses offer cascading waterfalls and manmade lakes.

But away from the fantasy of a desert oasis, reality is often a tough sell to locals: This is a parched desert city whose residents live on the edge of habitability.

This is a place that gets an average of 4 inches of rain a year, and triple-digit heat is the norm.

The wasted water running down neighborhood gutters came from 1,050 miles away in the Rocky Mountains, where global warming is apparently altering conditions. Trees are creeping higher up mountainsides and perhaps changing the weather, and warmer temperatures and a persistent drought have melted the snowpack to a record low.

Less water has made its way to Lake Mead, filled by the Colorado River and the source of southern Nevada's drinking water. Lake levels are the lowest since 1964.

Water waste is rampant amid the most explosive growth in the country, and the federal government says global warming will only worsen the city's problems. Warmer temperatures will lead to more heat-related illnesses, air pollution will contribute to more respiratory problems and water woes will increase, a government report says.

Conserve or else, water officials say. Manage growth better or stop it altogether, environmentalists say.

"Las Vegas could become the biggest boom/bust town in the West," says Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

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In the 1920s, when Las Vegas was nothing but a dusty railroad town, no one knew the boomtown it would become. So, when water rights to the Colorado River were given out in 1928, Nevada got the least.

For awhile, 300,000 acre-feet of water a year seemed to be enough.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough water to supply a family of five for a year.

But this year, Las Vegas, at 1.5 million people and counting, will exceed its allotment for the first time by an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 acre-feet.

Water officials didn't expect the city to use its full share until 2007.

With an uncertain snowpack and continued growth, managing water is one of the city's biggest challenges.

Water officials are convinced Las Vegas has enough water to keep growing until 2050, assuming the city meets conservation goals. Las Vegas also stores water in aquifers here and in Arizona for future use.

So far, conservation hasn't been taken seriously.

The city failed to meet its conservation goals the past three years. Last year, 10.4 billion gallons of water was wasted _ enough water to wash 260 million cars, the water authority says.

Part of Las Vegas' appeal may be its problem. The Bellagio fountains and golf courses carved out of barren land give an appearance of water abundance, but they are surprisingly water-efficient. Most casino water attractions and some golf courses use recycled water.

Resident Duane McNelly, 34, says he isn't fooled.

"I know the minute the Colorado dries up, this place is history," says McNelly, looking over water-efficient landscaping plants at the city's Desert Demonstration Gardens.

"I know better than to think this is an oasis."

But McNelly is in the minority. It's his neighbors who create jobs for water waste investigators like Gegen.

Lawns in sprawling subdivisions require 90 inches of water a year to stay healthy, but most residents use much more.

Residents are forbidden from watering their lawns between noon and 7 p.m., but Gegen always finds a waster.

"Every time," he says, shaking his head. "You can't go out on a shift without finding new stuff."

The city's poor conservation forced the Las Vegas Valley Water District to get tougher. Deputy Drip, a cheery-faced, blue water drop in boots and a lawman's badge, was nixed because his conservation message was too upbeat.

Now chronic wasters must pay a fine or attend a conservation class.

Jean Bell, a veteran of desert living after enduring Las Cruces, N.M., before her eventual move to Las Vegas in 2000, isn't impressed with her fellow Las Vegans.

"This town is watering streets and wasting water like I can't believe," she says. "It's like going back in time 100 years. I can't believe how backward they are."

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In Las Vegas, the heat is as constant as the neon. Summer temperatures of 110 are not uncommon. Cars turn into scorching ovens. Leaving an air-conditioned building is like entering a sauna.

"Hotter than hell," sums up Allean Blair, 65, as she sits inside her painting class at the Derfelt Senior Center.

The recent U.S. government report says that by 2100, global warming will cause temperatures in Nevada to increase 5 or 6 degrees in the summer. Climatologist Kelly Redmond of the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno says climate change has already occurred.

In northern Nevada, the annual mean temperature in Reno has risen a degree in the past 30 years.

But in southern Nevada, the trend is much more pronounced: Up 3 degrees over those years, from 63 degrees to 66 degrees, Redmond says.

Higher temperatures may increase the number of heat-related deaths and heat- related illnesses, the government says. Those most at risk are the elderly, a segment of the Las Vegas population that by 2010, is expected to grow nearly 68 percent to 387,387.

Amy Simpson, 73, says the heat doesn't bother her as she munches a ham sandwich at a picnic table outside the senior center. "I've been here 40 years. I'll be buried here."

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Environmentalists say water waste is a sign that Las Vegas can't manage its growth.

"With dwindling water supplies, global warming and other factors, I think Las Vegas will become the 'Apocalypse Now' of the American West," says David Hogan, rivers program coordinator for the Tucson, Ariz.-based Center for Biological Diversity.

The city's growth must stop now for the city to survive, he says.

But that would put Las Vegas in a battle against what made it what it is. Stop growth and the image of an affordable city with a healthy economy would quickly fade.

City and county officials don't want to do that, so they're changing the way the city grows.

Compact development is being encouraged, so developers don't "leapfrog" over vacant land.

"The more compact the development, the less you have to spend on infrastructure, the less smog, the less impact on air quality," says Charles Pulsipher, zoning administrator for Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.

To help cool the city, new parking lots are required to have trees. Front lawns of new homes can't be more than 50 percent grass. Residents who rip out their turf and install water-efficient landscaping are rewarded with credits on their water bills.

The county also wants developers to consider putting small stores within residential areas to cut down on residents' trips to the grocery store. Two apartment complexes already did that.

"The less people travel, the less of an impact we have on the environment," Pulsipher says.

The Environmental Protection Agency says Clark County is in serious violation of federal Clean Air standards for dust and soot pollution, mostly from construction activity and unpaved roads. The county meets ozone regulations.

Many scientists blame greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and ozone for causing global warming because the pollutants tend to trap the sun's heat in the atmosphere. The government says climate change could increase ground-level ozone, leading to more respiratory illnesses such as asthma.

Dr. Victor Cohen, an allergy and asthma specialist, sees the effects of pollution in his patients, many of whom thought they were escaping their allergies with a move to Las Vegas.

"Asthma and allergies are a big problem in the desert Southwest," he says. "Any time there's heat and an excessive amount of dust and pollution, it's a bad spot for your sinuses."

The local chapter of the Sierra Club and the Regional Transportation Commission are encouraging residents to carpool, ride bicycles and take the bus.

"The air quality is at a very crucial point," says Leana Hildebrand, Sierra Club spokeswoman. "We can all see the haze that's going on in the Las Vegas valley. We're in the last stages of becoming the new L.A."

Back at the senior center, the painting group banters about old Las Vegas, when you could get from one side of town to the other in minutes, when water was never an issue and cars didn't clog the highways.

"When I grew up here, I saw the mountains every day," remembers Linda Rolle, 45, a Las Vegas resident since she was 3. "And now, I treasure the days I can see the mountains.

"I'm very selfish," she says. "I'd like to say, 'Stop. Don't let anybody else in.' "

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