Sin City's Continuous Flow
Arid Las Vegas is wheeling and dealing to satisfy its outsize cravings for water
Such comments make people like Steve Rypka cringe. The lanky 6-foot-3-inch "green living" consultant has made a science of how to take a five-minute shower, recently winning a "water hero" award from Mulroy's agency, in part, by installing an adjustable ring on the low-flow showerhead in his bathroom.
"I still get a nice spray at well under a gallon a minute," he boasts. "And I can get clean in less than five."
Rypka complains that for all her conservation programs, Mulroy still promotes wastefulness, not merely because she encourages long showers but because she doesn't charge enough for the water her agency meters. To be sure, the Las Vegas area's tiered rate system—which charges between $1.10 and $3.48 per 1,000 gallons—costs most residents about the same as what folks in Chicago pay and about a third of what Santa Fe, N.M., residents do.
"It just shows how out of touch folks are with the reality here," the longtime Las Vegas resident says as he drives his Toyota Prius past a field full of twisted creosote bushes, the Mojave Desert's most water efficient, yet unloved native plant. "People don't like to use it for landscaping because they think it's ugly," Rypka says of the plants. "But if we really want to get serious about sustainability—not just 10 or 20 years out, but 500 years—then we're going to have to rethink our idea of what's beautiful." For Rypka, it's the creosote. For others, it's the neon lights and shimmering fountains. In Las Vegas, reconciling those two views is a constant struggle.
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