Skip to Content

Are Vegas Resorts Draining Lake Mead?


Key Points:

  • Resorts have made installation of water-saving fixtures a priority while also switching over to landscaping that requires less water.
  • Water that goes down the drain is reclaimed and recycled – Much of which is returned to Lake Mead.

Are the enormous Las Vegas Casinos responsible for the declining water levels in Lake Mead?  

It’s not a secret that Lake Mead’s water level has been on a concerning decline for some time. The lake’s water level has fallen significantly from its peak reached in 1983 as evidenced by the white “bathtub ring” visible around the reservoir marking where the water level has been historically.

According to NASA, Lake Mead has recently hit a record low. In fact, the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s original intake valve is now exposed above the water.   

The obvious culprit to most casual observers would be the gargantuan Las Vegas resorts that line the strip, often comprised of thousands of guest rooms. It makes sense that all those showers, toilets, sinks, and laundry operations would be the culprit behind the declining water levels. As it turns out, however, that may not be the case.  

While water use in the resorts from the use of sinks, toilets, showers, drinking fountains, etc. is significant, casinos have taken positive steps to curb use by installing high-efficiency fixtures.

More importantly, water that finds its way into a drain is reused either directly (for things like irrigation, building cooling, etc.) or treated and returned to Lake Mead via the Las Vegas Wash.

The wash serves as a waterway that moves reclaimed water, storm, and urban runoff back to Lake Mead. The wetland-like properties of the wash also help to filter and clean the water that it transports before depositing it back into the reservoir.  

Wasteful water use resulting in a permanent loss at Las Vegas casinos typically occurs outdoors. While water used indoors can be recycled back into Lake Mead, water used outside for irrigation and at the pool is lost to the environment permanently. 

For instance, a UNLV research paper estimated that a typical Las Vegas resort pool loses 8.32 feet per year to evaporation.

Additionally, the study estimated that irrigation of landscaping on resort properties consumes around 79 gallons per square foot annually. Xeriscaping, which is landscaping leveraging plants with a lesser need for water uses around 54 gallons per square foot annually.  

Garden of the Gods pool at Caesars Palace
8.32 feet of evaporation annually.

On a separate but related note, the Fountains of Bellagio are not fed by Lake Mead, instead, the source of the water is a well located on-site. Contrary to popular belief, the lake out front of Bellagio isn’t filled with gray water, or wastewater reclaimed from use at the resort.  

Fountains of Bellagio with Paris Las Vegas in the Background
©klotz/123RF.COM

Major resort operators are stepping up to combat the ill effects of outdoor water use on Lake Mead. MGM Resorts spoke to members of the US Senate about their commitment to conserving Lake Mead pointing out that ”At MGM Grand Las Vegas, 100 percent of the property exterior irrigation and 60 percent of property cooling tower water needs are provided by well water sources.

Just south of the MGM Grand, at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium, 90 percent of the Shark Reef water is reused and recycled, resulting in over 2.1 million gallons of reclaimed water annually.”  

See Also: MGM Resorts is also making strides to use solar energy.  

On that same note, Caesars Entertainment stated that they have “saved an estimated 1 million gallons of water by switching to drought-tolerant landscaping at Caesars Palace”. As part of the transformation, 20,000 square feet of living grass in front of Caesars was swapped out for artificial turf conserving an estimated 1 million gallons of water annually.  Since 2008, Caesars has decreased their water withdrawal from Lake Mead by 11%.  

While there’s still work to do in preventing permanent water loss outdoors at Las Vegas resorts, it’s comforting to know that your daily shower, bathroom break, and water consumption is minimally impacting Lake Mead.

While we keep our fingers crossed for heavy snow in the mountains to feed the reservoir, it’s good to know that resorts are increasingly conscious of their water use to minimize their impact on Lake Mead.  

On the topic of Lake Mead, ensure you make the day trip from Las Vegas at some point! It’s worth the drive. 

Related: Check out our Hoover Dam visit and tour!

Share this Article!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

scott weatherly

Wednesday 18th of January 2023

How are you today. Water is our most important resource. Nothing on this world can live without it. In a time when we are having extreme problems with drought and our government does not have a clue as to why and will not listen to the normal person as to what is really causing the problem, then maybe just maybe one of you reading this letter will at least think about saving some of the water we allow to run off to the ocean each year that nature never intended to go there. We have extreme flooding back east almost every year, like on the Mississippi river and others. Back in the day when these rivers flooded the planes all of that water soaked into the ground allowing the grass to grow witch fed allot of grazing animals like the buffalo. But now we have built cities up and down these rivers and levies to keep the water from flooding all of them and still the water gets to high flooding these cities causing millions in damage. All of that water that floods these cities is supposed to do that as nature intended but we are forcing it to flow into the ocean, something nature never intended to happen in the first place. So why don't we make pipe lines to move all that water. If we can build pipe lines over 800 miles and three mountain ranges just to bring down oil from Alaska, and the keystone pipe line at some 2000 miles just to move oil, something nothing in nature needs to survive. Then we can do the same thing with water, something everything in nature CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT. So we build pipe lines from these rivers to our big reservoirs like lake mead (hover dam). When the rivers rise to the point that the levies need to do there job then we can start bumping water from them because the water the levies are holding back, nature never intended for that water to make it to the ocean in the first place. So why not save it for our needs. Pumping off the flood water will also save millions of dollars in flood damage as every gallon of water we pump from the rivers during flood time is one less gallon of water these cities need to worry about. So if we can move oil this way then we can move water. WE MUST DO THIS NOW or we will be screwed in as little as ten years. Keep in mind that the true problem with every thing like drought and the green house effect is all caused by over population. In 1950 we had a world population of 2.5 billion. It took us from the time we where considered human until 1950 to reach a population of 2.5 billion. We now have 7.4 and by 2050 we will have 9.9 billion on this planet, so what has taken us from the time we where considered human until 1950 to reach 2.5 billion people, we are now adding that many people to the planet every 33 years. So if we are going to be dumb enough to allow this to happen with our planets resources already being consumed faster than nature can keep up with then we must save what we can instead of just allowing it to run off especially when it can be done with out impacting the Eco system. Time to think out side the box and save what resources we can when we can before its to late. Thank you for reading , Scott Weatherly

Cherie Johnson

Friday 11th of March 2022

I live 20 Miles from lake Mead, yes las Vegas and California is taking. Water at as fast as the water was put in. We used to have people come far and wide to our beautiful lake now I like is almost dead because of water waste. She was a beautiful lake.

Tom A

Tuesday 22nd of February 2022

Interesting article. It makes it sound like drawing water from wells instead of lake mead is a good thing. This article clearly illustrates how precarious the ground water supply is in las vegas: https://eos.org/features/is-green-las-vegas-gone-forever Do a quick search on the web and you will find many areas with dropping aquifers. Aquifers that will eventually, or in some cases already have, run dry. Areas that include Phoenix, Tucson, farming regions in California. The list goes on and on. The bottom line is the desert regions are all using a limited water supply and no one has a plan for when they run out of water. Most seem to put it off by saying they have a 50 year water supply. None have plans for when water runs out in 50 years.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.