Water board OKs plan to ban grass in new housing developments

A Southern Nevada h2o committee approved a connection Monday that volition pave the mode for banning grass successful caller lodging developments.

Southern Nevada Water Authority officials volition present enactment with section municipalities to update codes to instrumentality the ban, which applies to each caller improvement speech from schools, parks and cemeteries.

The turf prohibition comes arsenic officials successful Southern Nevada question caller routes to conservation to combat the effects of a shrinking Colorado River.

Decades of drought and overuse of the stream person depleted Lake Mead’s h2o level truthful overmuch that the national authorities declared a h2o shortage for the reservoir this year.

Existing regulations prohibition writer successful beforehand yards and bounds it to 50 percent of a backyard’s area. Residents successful existing lodging developments volition inactive beryllium capable to adhd writer to backyards arsenic agelong arsenic the turf installation complies with the 50 percent cap. No nonmigratory who already has writer volition beryllium forced to region it.

For decades, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has aggressively pursued the removal of writer successful the Las Vegas Valley. Since 1999, the bureau has offered homeowners wealth to swap retired turf for godforsaken landscaping, an effort that has converted millions of acres of writer and saved billions of gallons of water.

This year, Gov. Steve Sisolak signed a instrumentality that bans “nonfunctional” writer successful Southern Nevada. The nonfunctional turf, specified arsenic writer recovered successful medians and postulation circles, indispensable beryllium removed by the extremity of 2026.

Water conservation successful Southern Nevada depends astir solely connected outdoor depletion due to the fact that astir each driblet utilized indoors is treated and sent backmost to Lake Mead for aboriginal use. Outdoor irrigation is the largest usage of h2o successful Southern Nevada.

This is simply a processing story. Check backmost for updates.

Contact Blake Apgar astatine bapgar@reviewjournal.com oregon 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar connected Twitter.