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"The bulldozer roars, and bites into a patch of green grass in Las Vegas, the city once hailed for making the desert bloom. It is ripping up five acres of football pitches, formerly the pride of the gambling city's Ed Fountain Park, because a five-year drought has left the grass of parks and gardens parched.
Out in the sprawling suburbs of America's fastest-growing city, Jerry Edgerton is one of hundreds of householders who have accepted an unusual offer from the water authority: $1 (56p) for every square foot of turf they dig up. Instead of a lush front lawn he now looks out on to a brown, manicured version of the desert. It is the end of what was once the suburban dream. City councils across America's arid western states are being forced to introduce "desert landscaping" around their buildings.
Swimming pools are banned from new housing estates, and in Las Vegas only the big, glittery casinos of the "Strip" are still allowed to keep their fountains gushing. The water authority has budgeted $30 million this year to pay people like Mr Edgerton - enough to dig up the equivalent of almost a football pitch each day.
Patricia Mulroy, director of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said: "Time is running out, and conservation - even pulling up all the turf - is just tinkering at the edges." For several winters running there has been below-average snowfall in the Rocky Mountains, producing only half the water "run off" on which the modern West depends. In Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Southern California, 30 million people depend on water from the Colorado River. "There is no more water. The drought that couldn't happen is here." said Ms Mulroy."
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