Southern Nevada Water Authority initiates new water conservation ad campaign

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - The Southern Nevada Water Authority wants people to do something simple, follow the seasonal watering schedule. And it hopes running some new ads on social media and tv will help people get the message.

“The Southern Nevada Water Authority launched a new ad campaign for the seasonal watering restrictions. These are 15-second advertisements and they’re really focusing on what is going on at Lake Mead, showing those visuals at Lake Mead and hoping that is something that will encourage, as well as motivate the community, to go out there and change that sprinkler clock,” said Bronson Mack with the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

One of the ads shows water levels dropping around the dam and then a parched landscape.

“I think what the ad is representing is that the reality of the situation for Lake Mead is that Lake Mead has dropped 170 feet in the past two decades,” said Mack.

There has been a lot of talk about “dead pool” status, 895 feet, where no water would go through Hoover Dam to generate power and leave those downstream dry. But rather than just show the problem the ad includes one solution to conserving water.

“It’s time to get real. Change your watering clock now. Water only three days a week in the fall. It’s the law,” says the ad.

“Set that irrigation clock to run on your three assigned watering days going forward. You need to follow those three assigned watering days until Halloween. And then after Halloween, we go to one day a week,” said Bronson.

He also says people can save a lot of water by turning off their sprinkler systems for a few days when it rains.

“In August when we had a week worth of rainstorms and the community shut off their irrigation systems, and evaporative cooling systems didn’t have to work so hard because of cooler temperatures, our community save more than 250 million gallons of water,” said Mack.

Bronson says we added more than a billion dollars in infrastructure to gather water from deeper in the lake if we get close or hit dead pool status, which would keep Southern Nevada’s water flowing.

A second ad talks about how nearly all the water that goes down your drain inside your home is returned to Lake Mead.

Copyright 2022 KVVU. All rights reserved.