Wash Green Up

On an uncharacteristically cold April morning, more than 500 volunteers from throughout Southern Nevada braved windy conditions to plant approximately 10,000 trees along the region’s major urban waterway.

The inaugural Las Vegas Wash Green-Up held on April 7, 2001 was the latest in a series of activities by the multi-agency Las Vegas Wash Coordination Committee (LVWCC) to protect and manage the Las Vegas Wash. During the past three years, the committee has helped organize volunteer clean-ups that have resulted in the removal of more than 500,000 pounds of trash from the environmentally sensitive area. The LVWCC, comprised of local, state and federal agencies, environmental organizations, business leaders and private citizens, was created in 1998 to develop and implement a long-term management plan for the 12-mile channel. The wash funnels virtually all of the 1,600-square-mile Las Vegas Valley’s excess water into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest manmade reservoir and the primary water supply for millions in Nevada, Arizona and California. In addition to reducing sediment deposits into Lake Mead and providing wildlife habitat, the wash’s wetland vegetation helps polish water flowing into the lake.

U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, who was among the volunteers, noted, “The Las Vegas Wash plays an important role in Southern Nevada’s watershed, but it also represents one of our greatest recreational and scenic areas. These are some of Southern Nevada's most valuable -- and most fragile – natural resources. If we are going to protect them, and all that they mean for our future, we have to act now. I spent a lot of time in Congress last year fighting for the funding we need. It's a real pleasure this year to be planting the trees, and seeing the difference.”

According to Keiba Crear, an environmental biologist working with the LVWCC, the massive tree planting was only one step in the committee’s plan to restore a waterway whose wetland vegetation has been eroded from 2,000 to less than 200 acres during the past two decades.

“To affect habitat restoration, you have to begin by bringing erosion under control,” Crear said. “We are accomplishing that by constructing erosion control structures and by planting trees and shrubs, which serve as a kind of ‘bio-armor’ for the wash’s banks. Once we succeed in stabilizing the channel, we can look at developing additional wetlands.”

Learn more about the wetlands and what is being done to evaluate, develop, and protect them.