August 2, 2006

Washington, D.C. – The White Pine County Lands Bill, introduced by Senators John Ensign and Harry Reid yesterday, contains an expansion of the turf-replacement program in Clark County, designed to dramatically conserve water in southern Nevada. Under the White Pine County bill, funds from land sales would be allocated to supplement the popular “cash for grass” program implemented by the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

“This is an opportunity to bolster and expand a program that drastically conserves water and doesn’t cost Nevada taxpayers a dime,” Ensign said. “Replacing water-needy landscapes with desert xeriscapes requiring no water is a smart and responsible idea, and I’m proud to see the expansion included as part of the White Pine County Lands Bill.”

Under the White Pine County Lands Bill, a portion of the funds from land sales will be used to assist public institutions such as schools and local governments in replacing their current landscapes with more water-efficient landscapes.

“The ongoing drought continues to be one of the more pressing problems in southern Nevada, and, with our growth continuing, the problem is just going to get worse without creative solutions,” Ensign said. “The Southern Nevada Water Authority created a smart, common-sense remedy in its turf-buyback program, and those sorts of solutions deserve our full support.”

Since being implemented in 1999, the Clark County turf buyback program has completed more than 20,000 turf replacement projects, saving more than 12 billion gallons of water. Expanding the turf buyback program will save 42,000 acre-feet of water per year, an amount which is nearly 20% of southern Nevada’s allocation from the Colorado River