Grass Is The Most Wasteful Crop In The US. Should We Ban It? | True Cost | Insider Business

this Farm is growing hundreds of Acres of lush green grass in the middle of the desert most of it will end up in the Las Vegas Valley and that Turf is thirsty it's likely grass uses more water than any other crop in the U.S so after Decades of Mega drought Nevada is the first state to ban lawns now water cops are on the hunt for anyone

wasting water on so-called useless grass it's just aesthetic it doesn't serve any kind of functional purpose other than for looks and it's a problem All Over America we dump about a third of the water we use at home onto our lawns but at what cost and can Nevada show us how to live without them waterways investigator 8776 today is Monday January 23 2023. water patrollers often

start making their rounds Before Dawn Cameron danaroma is on the lookout for violations like faulty sprinklers or water runoffs like this once it's out on the street it's gone forever even if it hits the storm drain it's it evaporates key issues just a warning at first after that fines can go up to over five thousand dollars residents can only water their yard on assigned days each

season that means just one day a week in the winter all this enforcement seems to be working we're actually using 26 less water than we were 20 years ago but that's just a drop in the ocean when it comes to the Region's larger Water Crisis Vegas is seeing record population growth and more people means more thirsty lawns that's why Nevada is the first state to introduce

a law Banning what's known as useless grass like these areas between the sidewalk and Street new Turf is still allowed in schools parks and cemeteries but more on that later the issue here isn't really the turf it's this Lake Mead became the largest Reservoir in the U.S after the Hoover dam was built in 1935. after viewing the dam itself the sightseer invariably visits Lake Mead an

especially inviting feature in the middle of the desert but since the Lake's peak in 1983 its water level has fallen 180 feet that's roughly the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa it's fed by a shrinking Colorado River which supplies 90 percent of Southern Nevada's water a deal struck in 1922 divided up the river's water among seven states Nevada was given just 1.8 percent but back

then River levels were higher and cities were smaller Clark County which includes Vegas had a population of only around 5000 at the time today it's well over 2 million to keep supplying enough water for its residents the local Water Authority estimates the Colorado River Basin States need to reduce their water use by between 2 million and 4 million acre feet a year so we're looking at

needing to remove every single year the water use of 10 Las vegases from the Colorado River it was the wake-up call that led Vegas to take action by 2024 golf courses will have to cut their water use by more than a third and any new ones won't have access to the Colorado River for irrigation another part of this huge effort is getting rid of wasteful grass

since the early 2000s we've been incentivizing the removal of turf the difference now is that the state is taking a tougher approach a new law says commercial property owners in the Las Vegas Valley have until 2027 to get rid of turf Landscaping at offices roundabouts and entryways for housing developments the Water Authority estimates this will save nine and a half billion gallons of water a year

that's more than 400 Bellagio felons residents are allowed to have grass in their front or backyards for now but new homes can't have it anywhere on their property Nevada is paying landowners three dollars for every square foot of grass they remove and Vegas spent 27 million dollars on incentives in 2022 alone Par 3 landscape is one company making the most of the new laws we recycle

a hundred percent of our green waste so all the grass that is taken out during these Turf conversions will be turned into mulch decorative rocks and native plants that don't need as much water will replace Turf in this residential community in Henderson we started this about a year or two ago realizing what we had to do and we have like about a 10 mile Loop that

we had to deal with nearly a third of the U.S is experiencing drought but not everyone is ready to get rid of their lawn just yet brass is a very emotional subject for for residents in our community we live in a desert and having the greenery is an amenity that everyone loves a well-manicured lawn and a white picket fence have been status symbols since the rise

of the suburbs in the 1950s [Music] Power air cool engine she's off on the lawn mowing Expedition by the early 2000s this kind of grass spanned about 63 000 square miles making it the largest irrigated crop in the country NASA estimated there were three times more Acres of Lawns than corn Nationwide landscape irrigation accounts for 9 billion gallons of water a day but this green grass

isn't native to North America so where did it all come from in the 17th century colonists wanted seeds to plant pastures for their livestock Supply ships brought over what we now know as Bermuda grass and Kentucky bluegrass from Africa Europe and the Middle East it wasn't until two centuries later that long started gaining traction and even then they were seen as a privilege reserved for the

grass is just starting to grow but by Springtime these vast green circles can be seen from space Valley sods started with just 30 Acres of turf in 2001. now it's evolved into about 500 Acres and almost all of it is Bound for the Las Vegas Valley they're selling mostly to commercial properties like schools golf courses and Parks I don't think Parks will come a thing of

the past certainly residential Turf is just pretty much going away they've been switching to Grass species that require less watering and can withstand hotter temperatures we've tried our best to keep up with the demands of the climate of the drought karapia has been the best one that we've found so far workers mow the field up to three times a week and vacuum the grass clippings then

they use this machine to cut and roll the turf the Colorado River isn't the source of this water here it comes from aquifers that are fed by the surrounding mountains we're pumping water anywhere from 300 feet to a thousand feet below ground and it's closely managed so just the right amount is hitting the spots that need it each new well you usually have to go a

little bit deeper and make adjustments over the years back on patrol Cameron is also noticing that things are changing I've been doing this job for a couple of years now so Wildlife Patrol through areas I see a lot of homeowners out here removing their non-functional useless Turf and replacing it with water efficient landscape this is an example of a new community in Las Vegas where there's

no Turf in sight they're not allowed to have any grass installed in the front yard so as you can see it's all desert landscape in this whole neighborhood and as drow continues to plague the Southwest this might become the new normal for the All-American yard [Music]