Las Vegas Restricts Pool Sizes, Targeting the Super-Rich

Las Vegas could also be a metropolis of extra—however not in terms of swimming swimming pools. Officials voted this week to cap the dimensions of residence swimming swimming pools in Clark County, Nevada, the place Vegas is situated, in an try to preserve water within the face of the area’s punishing drought.

The new laws received’t retroactively have an effect on the county’s 200,000 residence swimming swimming pools. But after September 1, new swimming pools can have a most dimension of solely 600 sq. toes (55.7 sq. meters). That’s nonetheless a reasonably large pool: it’s roughly the identical dimension as a three-car storage, and the common dimension of residence swimming pools in Clark County is simply 470 sq. toes (43.7 sq. meters). The restrictions additionally received’t have an effect on new business swimming pools in resorts, water parks, and different companies. But these new requirements might assist rein in water wastage by—you guessed it—the super-rich.

“We have a lot of pools that exceed 3,000 square feet… and a lot of stuff seen in these new homes is not even used for recreation. It is all for aesthetic,” Las Vegas Valley Water District General Manager John Entsminger explained throughout a gathering of the Water District’s Board of Directors. “The increase in ‘pool-scaping’ definitely threatens to erode our efficiency gains in conservation.”

Vegas is on the entrance line of the West’s water disaster. About 90% of Nevada’s water supply is taken from the Colorado River, and most of that’s drawn from Lake Mead—which has hit historic low after historic low this yr due to drought and overuse. Officials on the assembly reminded the gang that Lake Mead might hit near “dead pool” ranges—the purpose at which the Hoover Dam can not produce hydroelectricity—by 2026 if drought circumstances proceed.

And within the face of those dire circumstances, extravagant swimming pools do appear tone-deaf, on the very least. It’s simple to search out examples of super-expensive, super-wasteful swimming pools in Vegas. The metropolis’s biggest private pool, owned by an actual property tycoon (who else), holds a very wild 180,000 gallons of water. Pool-themed residence enchancment reveals (yes, they exist) like Pool Kings, Supersize My Pool, and Cool Pools have featured plenty of outrageous Las Vegas swimming pools. A fast spin on actual property websites will present you plenty of pricy homes on the market with luxuriously large pool setups. (If the local weather apocalypse is actually your factor, somebody is even promoting a home with an underground doomsday bunker—that has its personal pool.)

“We have seen a proliferation in excess of one thousand, two thousand or three thousand square feet,” Bronson Mack, the general public info officer for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, mentioned at Tuesday’s assembly. “There is one right now that is 5,000 square feet that is looking to be permitted. I don’t know about you, but that is two times the size of my residential home.”

Unsurprisingly, the pool trade was not pleased with the brand new restrictions. “Our industry is being unfairly targeted because it’s easy to show pictures of lavish swimming pools saying ‘That’s the problem,’” Dustin Watters, the supervisor of an area pool and spa enterprise, said throughout the water district assembly.

Restricting the dimensions of residence swimming swimming pools—particularly with none restrictions on business swimming pools—isn’t precisely going to repair many years of water mismanagement mixed with the rising impacts of local weather change. Still, each drop counts in locations like Las Vegas—and proscribing pool sizes might assist slightly. An analysis of greater than 43,000 residential swimming swimming pools in Los Angeles discovered that an estimated 2,000 acre-feet of water—the quantity wanted to cowl a vertical acre in a foot of water, equal to about 326,000 gallons—are misplaced annually on account of evaporation from uncovered swimming pools. The common pool dimension in Vegas is definitely slightly larger than those measured in LA, and there are extra swimming pools in Clark County than had been coated on this evaluation.

The new pool restrictions are conserving in keeping with a lot of aggressive water reforms Las Vegas has made in current months. This yr, town began enacting a brand new state regulation banning “non-functional grass”—grass whose solely goal is to boost the looks of roads and sidewalks—by ripping it out and changing it with landscaping higher designed to face up to arid climate circumstances. (One sq. foot of grass landscaping alone makes use of 73 gallons of water annually; desert panorama wants solely 18 gallons.)

“For having a reputation as a city of excess, we’re actually one of the most water-efficient cities in the world,” John Entsminger, the final supervisor of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, told CBS in June.

What occurs in Vegas could often keep in Vegas, however right here’s hoping a few of these water conservation measures discover their manner elsewhere.