Bellagio Fountain
I’ve been getting this wrong.
The water in the Bellagio Fountain in Las Vegas does not come from recycled sewage:
The Bellagio fountains are mostly using well water that exists beneath the Bellagio landscape. That well water was used previously to maintain a golf course that previously existed there. The beauty of that is the current water use, because of the lake, represents only two-thirds of the water that was used before when the golf course existed, so in reality, the Bellagio uses less water than the golf course that use to be there before.
(I got it wrong in a talk I gave this morning, and a gentleman who knows Vegas water kindly corrected me in the hall after.)
Interested to read this, John, What was the name of the old golf course?
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I saw that spectacular water show they put on there. It was very cool. I am a little conflicted about the fountain using an invaluable natural resource from a well. Now what the Bellagio needs to do is to figure out a way to get some recycled water to the fountain. Just some at first. Not all. Then work on increasing that. Make that rumor come true. I thought they used recyled water for it too.
Michael – Thanks for stopping by.
Unfortunately, recycled water in the fountain wouldn’t help Las Vegas’s overall water situation. Currently, Las Vegas recycles essentially all of its water anyway, putting it back in Lake Mead after treatment. So any water diverted from that stream to use in the fountain would be a net depletion.
I thought it was saline g/w, i.e., “useless” for drinking but not for display…
David – I also heard the saline thing, but don’t have a publication-quality reference.
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I really love the way that fountain dances at night….
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