The Washing Machine

Remains of imploded casinos channel wastewater into a wetlands preserve

William Fox

Only in Las Vegas would we think to theme our wastewater. I'm walking through the Las Vegas Wash with Fred Sigman, who has been photographing here for more than 30 years, and we revisit it periodically to check out changes in what has been renamed the Clark County Wetlands Nature Preserve.


The wash used to be an intermittent stream bearing local spring flow toward the Colorado River. Development in the Valley produced increasing wastewater and runoff, all of which was sent to the wash for disposal. Nutrients from overwatered lawns and gardens spawned an increasingly more permanent and lusher wetlands.


When Fred was a teenager here, the wash used to be a haven for more than 300 species of birds, kids on bikes and amorous couples in cars, the homeless and people committing any manner of creative outdoor mayhem. In the 1970s, as Sam Boyd Stadium was being planned, county officials worried that stray bullets from illegal hunters in the nearby wetlands might hit people in the stands.


In sum, the wash was where you went in Las Vegas to have an adventure some place other than the Strip. A major flash flood in 1984 began to cut a deep channel in the soggy flats, and in July 1999, a 500-year storm hosed out the wetlands and created a water cannon aimed straight at Lake Las Vegas. The county stepped in to attempt mitigation of future floods, and at the same time create a sustainable habitat for wildlife.


The result is a 21st century version of urban nature, which has more in common with a washing machine than a natural wash. The first stop Fred and I make is at the Duck Creek trailhead, an arid parking lot bulldozed out of what used to be cattails. The dirt trails that once wandered out into the wash are now concrete loops riprapped with rocks the size of your microwave meant to forestall erosion that still plagues the park. Pesky nature.


The flats that were once sometimes wet and full of frogs, and at other times were nothing but cracked mud out onto which you could venture, are now deep pools carefully fed by measured flows of water. Every few hundred yards a sign tells you what you are looking at.


Given the circumstances, I don't have a problem with what's been done here by civil engineers. What I object to is the deployment of a term as misleading as "nature preserve." There's precious little here that's natural—it's a completely managed environment from the paths to the small cascades created by weirs in the watercourse. Weirs built out of not just rocks and boulders, but also the imploded remains of the Hacienda and the Sands.


Before leaving the wash, Fred and I drive down Pabco Road to where it used to cross the stream. Now it ends at the west end of a concrete spillway. Four girls clad in only bikini bottoms frolic in the shallow water at the top of the structure, striking poses as directed by a photographer beneath them. It's good to see that nature here hasn't been completely hung out to dry.

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