Las Vegas water usage versus any other city

I believe Las Vegas recycles 93 percent of its water. Your information is not correct

 

What's your source that the numbers in the linked article are incorrect?

 

The article mentions that the hotels recycle water, but also that the Strip only uses 7% of the water going to Las Vegas .

 

Self solving problem.

As long as municipalities sell potable water for less than a penny a gallon, then it's going to be used for things like driveway rinsing, toilet flushing, lawn maintenance, etc.
Interestingly enough, I think that Florida (which has very abundant rainfall) is waaaaay out on the sharp end with grey water re-use, and has been for decades.

It's interesting that when I visit places that have to desalinate their water they treat it like it was a resource or something.

 

Las Vegas has made huge strides in water conservation. As their population keeps increasing, water usage is down, because of their 93% water recycling program. But there are plans to bring in another water source, Lake Mead is drying up

 

A judge has blocked them from using the ground water from other areas of Nevada.

 

this is all harry reeds fault!

 

Hey, just some really crazy ideas I've thought up for this issue. Obviously these are just "what-if" scenarios, and I realize it's going to be a massive undertaking, not to mention expensive ones. But considering that fresh water will be an increasingly scarce resource that's difficult/expensive to find, would doing these things benefit in the long run?

Option A: Creating a national canal system to help divert water from areas that have too much of it, to areas that need it more. The idea is to build an extensive network of canals with various collection points via deep man-made lakes, and help channel excess water from areas that are prone to flooding or have received too much water via rainfall or snow melting, and deliver said water to areas that need the water.

As a side bonus, run some fiber optic lines alongside the canals to speed up internet connectivity nationwide without having to dig and bury cable for thousands of miles. And if they perfect small-scale hydro power, just plant a bunch of them along the canal along with solar panels to help produce electricity, which would probably help alleviate lots of ev cars charging at once if they ever take off in popularity.

Obviously this would be expensive, but it could start out small scale, and then gradually build up to link states together. I'm sure California would really love all that excess rainfall that's causing problems for much of the rest of the US right now. And this would help alleviate future droughts that may affect large parts of the country, such as the one back in 2012, which then affected food prices worldwide. Other potential issues are fracking and wastewater runoff, where a company illegally dumps that water into the system (maybe some sensors designed to detect such chemicals at key points?)

Option B: Diverting rivers from emptying completely into the ocean. Can they be rerouted to more drought stricken areas? It'd be similar to the above scenario, except we'd mostly rely on the rivers and smaller scale canal systems, and would still use man-made lakes to hold the excess water. Again, what kind of impact would this have on the environment, and the economy? And would this be enough, or would the rivers not provide enough water to satisfy the needs of people?

Option C: Building a couple of desalination plants around the west coast and gulf of mexico. Again, what kind of environmental impact and economic issues would this cause?

Option D: Would a large scale salt-evaporation pond work, with something installed above to collect the water that's evaporating to condense it back to fresh water, and then using the salt for winter roads or salt lick for animals to eliminate the "dumping brine back into ocean" problem? What if they build a canal for the ocean water to go into a desert area to utilize this, and put solar panels around the evaporation area. And the water would have to be controlled and monitored extremely closely, lest it seeps into the ground and contaminates groundwater.

Again, these are all pretty radical ideas, and no doubt expensive. But we should probably start considering things like this considering how bad some areas have it right now with getting enough fresh water. And maybe some of these ideas could be combined.

 

The canals and rivers would be a huge undertaking. The only advantage I see with them over boring out massive pipelines is that they will be quicker to make. Then there is the question of whether enough areas really do have too much water, and what impact diverting their water away will have. Washington gets a lot of rain. Enough that hydro power is their source of electric. Diverting water will mean them needing other, dirtier sources in all likelyhood.

C and D are basically the same. Modern, efficient desalination plants make as much use of solar distilling as possible. Unlike the salt pond, making their brine food grade will be easier.

 

I missed this thread earlier, being off-network during both go-rounds --

On the large scale needed for the American Southwest, all these are more expensive and higher impact than greatly improved conservation, and re-use of grey waters.

Option A: Where is this excess water? Where will the new storage lakes be built, without appropriating large amount of already developed lands and displacing large numbers of people? How much are we willing to pay for the enormous infrastructure to capture and store huge but infrequent flood flows? The small-scale hydro production won't be new energy, it will merely offset a portion of the energy needed to pump the waters high enough to flow through a thousand miles of canal.

Option B: Same as A, but with greatly increased energy requirements for pumping. And see below for my addition to Trollbait's reply.

Option C: The main issue is the energy cost of desalination, both in dollars and in new CO2 emissions. The southwest could use far more than just a couple plants.

Option D: I don't understand the "dumping brine back into ocean" problem. It is far less problem there than anywhere on land. Dilute brines turned right back into the ocean should be less energy intensive that concentrated brines and dried salt kept for other use.

Diverting our water also means shutting down some major transportation systems, killing off migratory fish runs, drying up important wetlands, destroying estuaries and habits critical to many other creatures, eviscerating big portions of what little remains of our Native American treaties, and plenty of other problems.

Note that we are already tearing out some of the dams holding back rivers, trying to reverse a century of damage:
Elwha River Restoration - Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
Return of the River - A documentary film about the largest dam removal project in the history of the United States, and the extraordinary effort to restore an eco-system and set a river free.
World’s Largest Dam Removal Unleashes U.S. River After Century of Electric Production
wikipedia: Elwha Ecosystem Restoration
National Park Service: Elwha River Restoration

 

Yep, Tuscon Arizona uses 1/3 less water par capita than Sin City. We have QAY too many golf courses and rich enclaves like Lake Las Vegas and Spanish Trails that have been "grandfathered in" and insist on acres of community and private grass.

As usual, it's OK to do that because "We can afford it, even if you can't." Well, actually NOBODY can afford this nonsense. It's past time for much better water conservation in 'Vegas. Look at the bathtub ring in Lake Meade if you think we have more time to ponder our past bad decisions.

 

If such grandfathering is still maintained, then they don't really have a true water shortage. They just lack cheap water.

Actually, comparing their utility rates to mine, they don't even lack cheap water. My utilities are billed bimonthly, but here are the equivalent monthly rates, converted to common units (with fixed fees and city franchise taxes rolled in):

My local rates (wet Pacific Northwest with adequate capacity expected for several more decades) --
Water: base charge $27.25 / month, plus $3.84 per 1000 gallons (low tier, rate effective 1/1/2013).
Sewer: $50 / month. (District made a slight decrease from 1/1/2014 rate to give a nice round number.)

Las Vegas rates --
Water: local district: $10.06 / month, plus $1.16 / 1000 gallons (low tier, which allows 34% more than my low tier).
regional water authority: $5.64/month, plus $0.34 / 1000 gallons (rate effective 1/1/2011).
Total water: $15.70 / month, plus $1.50 / 1000 gallons on low tier.
Sewer: $19.76 / month (billed annually, rate effective 6/30/2014).

Considering Vegas's low rates and high per capita water use, I'm not sympathetic. Until conditions change drastically, they should expect very strong opposition to any more attempts to steal water from far away areas.

 

being that US is surrounded on 2 1/2 sides by water....

I see no reason for CA to get its water from the east..... You have the Pacific ocean to suck all the water you want and put up distilling/desal plants. But I guess its easier/cheaper to pump water hundreds of miles over mountains...

In other words....become self reliant. don't rely on Las Vegas or Colorado for your water build you own water sources (desal,distil)

I'd say the same thing for the east coast and the south east. if you you live with in 200miles of a body of salt water, then you should be getting your water from the oceans..

 

USA is the largest natural gas producer..

Wind farms, Solar. plenty of large wide open spaces that could house a nuke plant.

where are they getting the juice to run the pumps ?

Hill, since you are in So cal. this affects you... You are unwilling to put a distill or desal plant in your backyard but are more than happy to take water from Nevada and Colorado, and essentially taking water from the colorado river that would other wise make it to mexico.

CA is big on using ground/rain water but is very slow at adapt desal...Why? desal isn't cheap.

at some point CA is going to have to think about other methods for water. better to start thinking about it now rather than waiting until the colorado dries up...Wh

if you believe Wiki...

Around 75% of California’s water supply comes from north of Sacramento, while 80% of the water demand occurs in the southern two-thirds of the state.[11]
A 2011 study of California single-family water consumption estimated that the average California household used more than 360 US gallons (0.0011 acre·ft) of water per day. To put that in perspective, the typical office water cooler holds 5 US gallons (1.5×10−5 acre·ft), or about 1.4% of the study’s estimated daily average household use. The study found that about 53% of total average household water use, or more than 190 US gallons (0.00058 acre·ft) per household per day, was used for landscaping and other outdoor uses Meanwhile, indoor use accounted for more than 170 US gallons (0.00052 acre·ft) per household per day. The most in-home water consumption is toilet flushes, using 20% of the water. After toilets, 20% is used for showers and 18% goes to leaks inside homes


IN a nutshell there is no quick or easy or cheap fix to the problem. But, Change will come..

 

There's plenty of water in Canada, but it's not for sale, because nearly everyone in Canada is against selling our water. I'm not against selling it, because when I looked into it, I was convinced that there's more than enough fresh water in North America to fulfill every need hundreds of times over.

It's definitely a precious commodity where it's in short supply, but everywhere else, almost all of it ends up being destroyed when it flows into the ocean. If pipelines were built, it could make every place greener and people wouldn't have to suffer with dry yards, low-flow toilets or water-saver shower heads.

I saw a PSA a few years back, funded by the David Suzuki Foundation, which made the point that, considering how many people on the planet have no access to clean water, we shouldn't be "wasting it" by taking showers or flushing toilets too much. I was inspired to write to them, inquiring how I could help the people in the third-world by using less water, considering that I live in a region with no water-scarcity issues at all.

The reply I got back was, "We don't understand your question."