Boulder City may be ready to boost water recycling
Even as other communities in the Las Vegas Valley have recycled water since the 1960s, the city closest to Hoover Dam uses up to 500 million gallons a year one time and then casts it away, lost to the air and desert. But that could change as Boulder City’s new mayor favors ending the community’s decades-long waste of precious water. Currently, Boulder City’s 16,000 residents use up to 1.5 million gallons of water a day for drinking, bathing, cooking and other needs. The water is then lightly treated, and some is sold for construction and other nonhuman use, but the majority is pumped into nearby evaporation ponds. In 2021, 250 million gallons were lost after one use.