This is season 4, episode 6 of Marketplace's How We Survive. Find more here.
Las Vegas is a fantastical Disneyland for adults in the middle of the desert, famous for its fabulous displays of water — like the thousand dancing fountains of the Bellagio Hotel or the winding canals that recreate Venice at the Venetian Hotel. But surprisingly, it’s a city that has also become known for water conservation and innovation.
Most of Southern Nevada’s water supply — 90% — comes from the Colorado River, but its share is the smallest among the basin states, less than 2%. That became a problem when, in the mid-1990s, Las Vegas began growing quickly, adding more than 1,000 new residents every week and constructing the mega resorts and casinos it’s known for today.
Enter Pat Mulory, the former general manager of both the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the Southern Nevada Water Authority. During her 25-year tenure as the top water manager in Southern Nevada, she would redefine conservation in the desert city and employ every tool at her disposal to acquire enough water for the thirsty city to continue to grow.
In this episode, we talk with Mulroy about the existential crisis that Las Vegas and other desert cities face, and how Southern Nevada has been able to cut its Colorado River water use by 31% in the past two decades, at the same time its population has exploded. Through her career, we’ll get a picture of one city’s fight to stay alive at whatever cost, and what that means for the trade-offs that we all may have to consider to keep living where we want to live.