Even though Las Vegas has cut its water consumption by 25 percent, and there’s little to no chance of a water shortage in 2018, everyone still wants to know—where does Las Vegas get its water? After all, Nevada is the driest U.S. state and gets its water from a lake that’s only at 40 percent of its storage capacity, giving the lake its famous “bath tub ring.” Still, Lake Mead is among the largest man-made lakes in the world, and its purpose is to serve the water needs of the American West. Before Las Vegas had casinos, resorts, master-planned communities, and golf courses, the Colorado River Compact promised the state of Nevada two percent of the water (to compare, California gets 27 percent). Now that the city is more than a budding metropolis, the Southern Nevada Water Authority doesn’t have much to work with.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency report, Las Vegas is estimated to receive somewhere between 70 percent and 90 percent of its water from the Colorado River, while the rest comes from groundwater wells and other pipelines. Unlike other states that get their water from multiple sources, the Hoover Dam remains the main source of water for the Valley. Oddly enough, per News Deeply, as the population has grown in Southern Nevada, the Las Vegas Valley has drawn less from Lake Mead even when the population boomed in the early 2000s. 

To make sure the Valley restricts its water usage, almost every drop of water that residents and tourists use indoors is sent through thousands of miles of pipes to treatment facilities that remove the bacteria and disinfect the water before it’s pumped into Lake Mead and reused. Las Vegas may only receive four inches of rain a year, but the Valley has become a water conservation model on the West Coast. 

So what are The Strip and the outlying suburbs doing to conserve water? 

The Strip

Bellagio fountains in The Strip

Whenever The Strip and Las Vegas’ water conservation is in the same sentence, everyone always wants to know about those Bellagio fountains. But Lake Bellagio’s approximately 20 million gallons of water are filtered and reused repeatedly. It takes four days to filter all the lake water through pumps, but the hotel also uses a cleaning barge to make sure the water is regularly turned over. Most, if not all, of the fountains in Las Vegas and on The Strip reuse the same water over and over. Plus, resorts only use about 7.6 percent of the Valley’s water, which pales in comparison to the suburbs.

The Suburbs

320-acre Lake Las Vegas in Henderson 

It has long been said that Nevada’s water conservation should be an example to other western states like California. The suburbs of Las Vegas and outlying cities like Henderson and North Las Vegas use most of the Valley’s water, with single-family homes taking up nearly 45 percent of the Valley’s water usage. And it takes work to get there: If you follow a gallon of water to Summerlin, it must travel over 50 miles and 2,500 feet vertically over 10 days to reach the master-planned community. If you follow the water map, it takes just as much effort to reach the other suburbs in the Valley.

Still, the city has done whatever it takes to reduce water use. According to the Las Vegas Sun, the Southern Nevada Water Authority saved 9.6 billion gallons of water in 2013 alone by ripping up 172 million square feet of grass. The water authority also makes a point to recycle about 65 billion gallons of water annually, place residents on a mandatory watering schedule, and give golf courses a stricter water budget.

A small amount (less than two percent) of the Valley’s water is sourced from the Las Vegas Wash in Whitney, but the neighborhood is both a wildlife resource and necessary addition to Las Vegas’ water portfolio.

So next time when you leave the water running while brushing your teeth, think about all the water you’re wasting and just turn the faucet off. You’ll be doing yourself, and Las Vegas, a favor.