This short video is a report on how Las Vegas is changing its residential water use by changing policy, offering inducements to home owners and penalizing large water users with higher prices. It covers the reasons for the necessary changes, details the urgency and describes how it is being done. The video includes what the home owner can do to comply and why they should. It is a very persuasive and informative report. However, it has some flaws as will be discussed.
Patricia Mulroy is the primary narrator of this report, the spokesperson, and she is the General Manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. We trust her expertise, because of her title, but her confident and knowledgeable delivery establishes a bond of friendly attention between her and the audience. She begins the video with a very concise statement which identifies the problem, the cause of the problem and the thesis that the way the residents are using water is not going to work any more. So we immediately know what the topic is and we are interested in the solution.
Following the first scene, we see an image of Las Vegas, including the brownish-yellowing of the sky, while the narrator points out that it is the fastest growing city in the U.S. and that there is a water shortage, in spite of appearances. Next there is a collage of images which show water being used by casinos. It appears to be very wasteful, but the narrator tells us, right after he outlines the need for conservation, that the casinos are not the big users. This gets attention and hooks the audience in, because it is surprising as we watch all the fountains and waterfalls at the casinos.
Patricia Mulroy returns to the screen to tell us that watering the lawn alone is responsible for about 60% of that use. She says that Las Vegas residents must change the way they landscape with grass and she assures us that residents are “embracing” this change. We switch to Johnathon Spears, a landscaping architect, for explanation of Zeriscaping, with the message on the screen that it comes from the Greek root for “dry”. Spears explains that he seeks to landscape with just as much impact as traditional methods, but using much less water. We are shown a beautifully landscaped back yard with a swimming pool while he says that proper design can use half, or even one third of the water. He says that 75% of his landscapes are more water savvy than previously. We trust him, because landscaping is his business, and he is attractive, though not perfect. Mostly we trust our eyes, because what we are shown is lovely.
The next part of the video tells us how the policy was changed and why, plus what methods are being used to help or persuade residents to comply:
- New developments are restricted to grass only in the back yards and occupying only half the space.
- Residents were offered cash to convert grass to indigenous low water plantings and other water saving landscaping techniques. When not enough complied, the cash offering was doubled.
- 25,000 residents have complied and taken the cash.
- 80 million dollars has been spent to remove turf, but it is saving 20 billion gallons of water per year.
The method outlined is interesting and logically a good tactic. We admire it. The number of resident complying seems large, but they have intentionally omitted the 1.1 million population of Las Vegas, with.3 million more in the county. This makes 25, 000 a small number. However, not all of those people own homes, but we can estimate that a sizable number do. The last numbers given are impressive, since the water saving are substantial. However, we cannot know the scale of this savings either as we are not told how many days or weeks of water usage in Las Vegas this represents.
Next, we are introduced to a local couple who took the offer to convert turf to other landscaping. We see their back yard, complete with a pond while they tell us that their first water bill was $165 because the front was all lawn. They how us their rock and cactus garden in front as they say that they agree with the program.
The camera switches to show us a television ad being used to convince the hold-outs. The narrator tells us that this represents a series aimed at getting people to turn on their water clocks. The commercial is mildly humorous, and makes its point with an old lady who rings a doorbell, and when a man comes to the door, she kicks him in a very sensitive spot. The scene switches to a close-up of sprinklers going on as the message displayed it intertextually connected to a popular movie and a hit TV show: The Godfather and Monk. The message says: Don’t make us ask you again: it’s a desert out there. Then it tells people where to find their watering schedules. The ad is mildly funny, but would get boring after a time. A better ad might have included some landscapes with thriving indigenous plants and wilting traditional grass and flowers.
The video returns to the landscaper and he explains what types of plants can save water. Then the next scene shows us a very dramatic picture of Lake Mead at Boulder Dam with the water line over 100 feet lower than previously. Spears continues to tell us that the lake is two-thirds of what is was and there is no way to know if and when there will be enough rain to fill it up again. This portion should have been longer. The one scene had tremendous impact. I wanted to know and see more. I wondered how it affected the fishing and wildlife.
The scene switched once again to a developer, John Ritter, who informs us that development in 2000 was exactly how it should not be done, especially in landscaping. We see a panorama of rather ugly developments while he speaks, identical houses in grids. He says that his company has changed its landscaping, eliminating grass, except in parks where it is needed. This seemed to be a token appearance, perhaps paid for by the developer? The developments we were shown were not impressive. This needs improvement.
The film switches back to Patricia Mulroy who says that the hold-outs will come around as their water bills get higher and higher. We see wasteful lawns as she speaks. She says that people who move to Las Vegas should expect that they will live in the desert, and hopefully enjoy that landscape. She says that all the major western states will have to follow their example, and in fifty years the landscapes will all be different in those states. She mentions that people there love the climate and the beauty of the desert. She finishes with a powerful statement: you wouldn’t move to Alaska if you don’t like the cold. Well, don’t move to the desert is you don’t enjoy the landscape and the plants that flourish there naturally.
Over all, I thought that this film was well done and persuasive. However, it slowed down here and there, and certain questions were not answered. We saw lots of ponds and swimming pools, but nothing was said about their consumption of water. Nothing was said about the ratio of savings that the 20 million gallons represented. In fact, that number standing alone is impressive, so it makes me suspicious of it actual value. I don’t think this film intended to report on the progress, but rather to persuade some of those mentioned “hold-outs”. If that was the intent than it worked. If it was intended to inform is lacks in both information and a clear method for evaluating that information. One thing must always be done when you want the audience to understand the size of your subject. It must have something with it for comparison. For example, to show how small a cellular phone is, put it with a package of cigarettes or some other widely recognized object with a standard size. This film missed that entirely. However, this was a persuasive film and well done for the purpose of persuading the population to comply. One thing that might have improved its persuasiveness would have been to say exactly how much money the water authority has spent on this program. From my acquaintance with someone who lived there, I know that many people have a low opinion of the water authority, because it is known that his water mostly supplied Los Angeles, and Nevadans have to buy their own water back at an inflated price. Many people are angry about this, and they would love to know how much the water authority is making and spending.