Las Vegas is in a desert, yet, it displays some of the largest and most exciting water shows in the world. How much water do these extravagant contraptions waste in one day? And where do they get the water anyways?

The city of Las Vegas acquires about 88% of its water from Lake Mead. Lake Mead is the man-made lake created by Hoover Dam. I guess you could say that the only reason that Las Vegas exists today is because of the Hoover Dam, after all the city itself only receives about 3-5 inches of rain a year. This wouldn’t be enough to service the 1.8 million people that live in Las Vegas, never mind the 35 million visitors each year.

So how much water do the fountains, the tropical landscaping, and the assorted pools and water features actually use?

Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy says that in reality, hotel-casinos consume a very small proportion of the water used here.

In fact, she says, local hotels account for 7 percent of the area's total use, even though their visitors account for an average of 14 percent of the people in the valley at any given time.

This is because the mega-resorts have been forced to be pro-active in water efficiency.  The MGM Grand, the largest single hotel in Las Vegas, uses more water than any other property in Las Vegas, but only modest amounts on a per room basis, 94,000 gallons, thanks to modern water management systems.

But what about the fountains at the Bellagio? According to Jamie Cruz Director of Energy and Environmental Services for the MGM Mirage:

“The Bellagio fountains are mostly using well water that exists beneath the Bellagio landscape.  That well water was used previously to maintain a golf course that previously existed there.  The beauty of that is the current water use, because of the lake, represents only two-thirds of the water that was used before when the golf course existed, so in reality, the Bellagio uses less water than the golf course that use to be there before”

“The water for this Treasure Island Cove comes from the 3,000 guest rooms here at Treasure Island.  The water that is used once in the showers and sinks is put through a sophisticated process of filtration called reverse osmosis in a state-of-the-art plant located here at Treasure Island and up to 100,000 gallons of water a day can be processed and reclaimed to fill this water feature.”

To make the unbelievable a reality, water shows in a desert, Las Vegas has been forced to be water conscious and frugal. The Bellagio may have the fountains but, the casino company recently removed more than 20,000 square feet of turf from the MGM Grand property and converted it to rock mulch and xeriscaping, converted more than 1.5 acres of shrub-landscaped areas from overhead spray irrigation to drip irrigation to save up to 80 percent of its water, and replaced all parking lot planters with water-wise landscape.

We could all learn a little from the casinos.

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