Drought Hysteria is Ruining Parts of Las Vegas

By Scott Roeben, on May 18 2023
2 min read 8 comments
Las Vegas Las Vegas WTF

Oy, enough with the drought scare, already.

Largely unfounded concerns about water scarcity in Las Vegas have inspired two Las Vegas casinos to ruin perfectly good photo ops, replacing water features with decorative sand and artificial grass.

Meh, we kvetch.

Here’s a look at some decorative sand at Excalibur.

The attraction nobody asked for: A meditation labyrinth at Excalibur.

We get it.

For casino resorts, it’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Use water, get criticized. Get rid of water features, get criticized.

Casinos are doing just fine, they can take the heat.

We just hate knee-jerk reactions to exaggerated doom-and-gloom predictions. Water is sexy, dirt isn’t.

Here’s another example of how some casinos are addressing concerns.

New York-New York has replaced its water feature at the base of the Statue of Liberty with what appears to be a putting green.

Yes, grass is legal in Las Vegas, but not at casinos.

Big thanks to our friend @JamesinLasVegas for the pics.

It doesn’t look bad, it just doesn’t look as good.

Conservation is great, as long as its not at the expense of things that make Las Vegas more magical.

Hotels also claim they don’t do daily housekeeping because of green initiatives. Unmitigated cow dung. It’s a cost-saving measure.

In the case of replacing water with sand and turf, it’s a slippery slope.

Thankfully, nobody’s eyeballing the Bellagio fountains. Bellagio has its own private well.

We don’t have three hours to explain why the reported crisis isn’t really a crisis, but let’s just say everyone needs to stop whining whenever a new casino is announced. There’s a reason they invented this way of writing things, “BuT tHE wATer!” It’s a way of mocking people without them realize they’re being mocked.

If and when we run out of water in a decade (we’ve been about to run out of fresh water since the 1970s), please remember more than 70% of the Earth’s surface is water.

When the time comes, Elon Musk will build a ton of desalination plants and we’ll have our water brought in by flying cars and other methods.

We’ll be fine.

If you insist upon freaking out about water, stop playing golf.

Stop ruining Las Vegas.

Update (7/2/24): Mandalay Bay had bailed on its Valley of the Falls, replacing it with fugly. Presumably, under cover of the supposed water shortage. Just awful.

Update (9/9/24): The fugly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.