I must confess that when I first heard Nevada was suing the federal government over the Colorado River, my immediate instinct was to side with the river. I have written extensively about the hubris of building a neon metropolis in the middle of a desiccated wasteland, usually while sipping a fourteen-dollar iced matcha in a coastal city built on a filled-in swamp. But perspectives change. Last week, I was invited to keynote the Mojave Sustainability and Luxury Wellness Summit at the Wynn Las Vegas. As my complimentary suite’s floor-to-ceiling windows automatically tinted to block out the unforgiving desert sun, I looked down at the resort’s pristine, three-acre artificial lake and experienced a profound shift in my environmental consciousness.
The federal government’s newly proposed water reduction plan threatens to strip Las Vegas of two-thirds of its municipal supply. For years, the federal Bureau of Reclamation has been politely asking states to voluntarily reduce their usage. Now, Washington is threatening to impose cuts unilaterally. Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo is suing to block this, and for once, I am forced to agree with a lawsuit filed by a state government. We cannot allow federal bureaucrats to dry up the vital, life-sustaining aquatic features of the Strip just so ordinary suburbanites can continue their lavish habits of bathing and boiling pasta.
The sheer entitlement of the local population is staggering. While the hospitality industry has spent millions on state-of-the-art recirculation pumps to ensure their indoor waterfalls remain entirely net-zero, the average resident of Clark County is still turning on their kitchen faucet and letting the water simply fall down the drain. They claim they are drinking it. They claim they are giving it to their pets. But where is the accountability? There is no ESG report for a family of four in Henderson.
It is incredibly frustrating to spend my mornings optimizing the evaporation rate of our pirate-themed lagoon, only to find out that people in the valley are still using water to make ice cubes in their own homes.
I discussed this exact disconnect over a private omakase dinner with a few board members of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. We agreed that the messaging around the drought has been entirely backward. We have spent decades blaming the resorts and the golf courses for the shrinking of Lake Mead, simply because they are highly visible and consume millions of gallons of water purely for aesthetic amusement. But this is a distraction from the real issue. The true drain on our natural resources is the quiet, decentralized greed of two million locals insisting on basic hygiene.
If the federal government wins this lawsuit and the two-thirds reduction goes into effect, the consequences for the global tourism economy will be devastating. The Mirage volcano might be forced to erupt only on weekends. The Venetian gondoliers could be reduced to pushing their boats across damp concrete. The Bellagio fountains, a cultural heritage site on par with the Pyramids, would be downgraded to a sporadic, depressing misting tent. Let that sink in.
And for what? So a dental hygienist in North Las Vegas can run her dishwasher? The trade-off is mathematically absurd. A single eruption of the Bellagio fountains brings joy to thousands of international tourists, many of whom have flown on private jets with massive carbon footprints just to witness it. A glass of tap water brings joy to exactly one person, and usually a person who does not even have the courtesy to leave a tip.
We are absolutely prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court to ensure our state's most vulnerable water cannons retain full operational pressure.
The solutions are obvious, but the political will to enforce them is cowardly. We need to implement immediate, mandatory tracking of every household that purchases a loofah. We need to transition the working class away from water-intensive activities like digesting solid food, and toward sustainable alternatives like swallowing dry nutritional dust. If we simply eliminated the residential use of water entirely, the casinos could finally expand their wave pools without having to apologize to the EPA.
During a morning panel I moderated—titled "Stranded Assets: Why Your Tap Water Belongs to the Wynn"—I asked the audience to honestly examine their own water privilege. I asked them to look deep inside themselves and ask if their evening shower was truly as important as maintaining the exact specific gravity of the shark reef at Mandalay Bay. The silence in the ballroom was deafening, mostly because the audience consisted entirely of casino executives who already agreed with me, but the point stands.
The federal government’s attempt to impose these cuts is a classic example of punishing the innovators to subsidize the laggards. The resorts have already done the hard work. They have reduced the water pressure in their employee restrooms. They have replaced the real grass on their secondary helipads with premium astroturf. They have purchased millions of dollars in carbon offsets to legally absolve themselves of whatever happens to the river.
If the lower basin states would simply stop drinking water for three to four years, the reservoirs would easily recover enough to support a second, even larger canal inside the Venetian.
We have reached a critical juncture. The Colorado River cannot sustain everyone, which means we must prioritize the entities that generate the most shareholder value per gallon. Nevada's lawsuit is not a selfish grab for a dwindling resource; it is a heroic defense of the state's right to shoot that resource hundreds of feet into the air synchronized to the music of Celine Dion.
It is time for the residents of the American Southwest to make a choice. You can either continue your selfish, daily habit of internal hydration, or you can have a functioning luxury economy. You cannot have both. I, for one, have already pledged to do my part. During my entire stay in Las Vegas, I did not drink a single glass of tap water, opting instead for a 2018 vintage Chablis. If I can make that sacrifice, so can you.