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Las Vegas Builders Lead Water Conservation Landscaping Efforts

Leading the way in demonstrating how home builders and others in the community can conserve water, the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association was recognized last week for a landscaping project that is replacing turf with water-efficient xeriscaping around its headquarters building in Las Vegas.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority gave the association and Landscape Services Inc., which designed and is installing the new xeriscape, its first-place 2003 Landscape Award in the category of landscape upgrading at a commercial building.

Irene Porter, the executive director of the association, said that the landscaping project has been eliminating turf areas in phases and it should be completed later this year.

“The new look is an enhancement to the SNHBA building, of which we’re all very proud, and it’s a significant water-saver that we urge all businesses to look into with the help of the Southern Nevada Water Authority,” Porter said.

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Landscaping accounts for more than half the water used in Southern Nevada, an area that receives only about four inches of precipitation a year.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has established a goal of increasing the area’s level of water conservation by 25% by 2010.

A recent study by the water authority found that a newly planted xeriscape requires 17 gallons of water per square foot annually compared to 79 gallons for a lawn.

For every square foot of grass that is removed, 55 gallons of water is saved, the study concluded.

The authority reported the encouraging news that residents and commercial properties removed more than 2.3 million square feet of grass and replaced it with xeriscape in 2001.
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