Joanna Bennett’s son Tyler, fascinated by construction, had his eyes glued to the workers at Mission Hills Park in Henderson. While they wet bare brown dirt to later install new grass, the duo was getting a first glance at the new look for parks throughout the city.
Bennett, a French Elementary School fourth grade teacher, is familiar with water as a limiting factor in the Las Vegas Valley but knows the lifesaving cooling effects grass can provide in the Desert Southwest.
“If you’re going to keep building these houses and blowing up the mountainside, there’s got to be a limit,” Bennett said during an interview at the park Wednesday. “They’re not willing to cut back on building because they want the growth. But growth means more water. Taking away parks is not the answer.”
Since Bennett became a resident 22 years ago, population has boomed in Henderson, the second most populous city in Nevada. Between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census, the city grew by more than 23 percent, adding nearly 60,000 residents.
To comply with a state law making it illegal to water so-called “non-functional turf” after 2026, Henderson and other cities are giving their parks a makeover. From Mission Hills, Henderson will rip out more than 88,000 square feet of grass and convert roughly 222,000 square feet of grass to a more drought-tolerant variety.
Mission Hills was one of the parks subject to a new Desert Research Institute study requested by the city that aimed to find out the extent to which grass removal would lead to elevated temperatures. The short answer: Temperatures could rise, but Henderson officials are doing what they can to mitigate that effect.
In total, Henderson plans to rip out more than 2 million square feet of grass from parks.
“We’re following the mandate,” said Amie Wojtech, Henderson’s park planner. “These are recommendations that we’ve gotten from DRI to make sure that we’re doing the best we can to have it as cool as it can be.”
What is non-functional turf?
When Assembly Bill 356 became law, it created a Nonfunctional Turf Removal Advisory Committee, or NTRAC, that would help guide the definition-making process.
The law provided that the committee would include representatives from local businesses, the owner of an office park, multifamily housing, HOAs and the environmental community.
For grass to be considered functional, the group decided it must be located at least 10 feet from a street. Driving past Mission Hills and other Henderson parks, that rule is easily observable as previously lush areas close to the road are now brown and awaiting desert landscaping.
“It’s grass you wouldn’t put a swing set on,” said Bronson Mack, a Southern Nevada Water Authority spokesman.
It cannot reside on a slope greater than 25 percent, on street medians, along streets or at the front of entryways to parks, commercial buildings, neighborhoods or subdivisions. Other functional turf categories included turf on golf courses, athletic fields and playgrounds.
Parks aren’t immune to the mandate, Mack said. The city of Las Vegas is undergoing a similar effort, with 140,000 square feet of grass removal, and a spokesperson for Clark County said staff members are currently identifying which parks will lose grass, as well. North Las Vegas didn’t respond to requests for data about its grass reductions at city parks.
Henderson estimates that from its parks alone, it will save almost 150 million gallons on a yearly basis.
“That’s water that we get to conserve and store for the community’s future use,” Mack said.
Keeping Henderson cool with less greenery
The Desert Research Institute study used infrared drones to map out temperatures before and after grass was taken out at different Henderson parks.
Tree canopy continues to be a powerful tool to create shade that can lower temperatures in the immediate surroundings by 30 degrees or more, in some cases. Similar to how human sweat evaporates, irrigation is a reason grass can cool the air around it, said Eric Wilcox, the study’s lead author and an atmospheric science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.
The city’s use of tan gravel, as the study calls it, will retain much less heat than pavement does in hot summers, Wilcox said.
While the study was limited in scope to Henderson parks and cannot be extrapolated to any other areas, he said it’s encouraging that the city was interested in learning more about heat mitigation. Wilcox’s team is ready and willing to conduct similar studies in other cities across the valley, if funding allows, he said.
“I think it’s positive that municipalities are thinking about understanding the effects of this,” Wilcox said. “They’re complying with a mandate, but they’re not interested in seeing heat exacerbated in their community.”
Innovative solutions
The study was helpful for Wojtech, the city park planner, to re-affirm what must be done to help cool the city long term.
Now with more data showing the power of trees, Wojtech said the city is leaning into diversifying the types of trees that exist in parks throughout Henderson. That way, if harmful insects or a species-specific disease migrates to Las Vegas, more trees have a chance of surviving.
“Knowing that we did this study, it just promotes that we need to have that diversification,” Wojtech said. “That was something that was re-confirmed.”
The city is committed to preserving as many mature trees as possible, she said. In some parks, three times the amount of trees are going in than were previously there.
On one of her afternoon walks with her dog Mojo at Mission Hills, Janet Miller spoke of her dismay at dwindling Lake Mead levels.
The 74-year-old Henderson resident has lived there off and on since 1980, and the rapid development of the city has been shocking to see. Getting rid of grass in many cases makes sense, Miller said.
“I understand that water is scarce,” Miller said. “They’re even paying homeowners to have grass taken out. And you can’t recycle this water — the minute it goes on grass, it’s gone. But you’ve got to have trees.”
Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.