Las Vegas Blew Up Its Casinos — Then Used the Rubble to Stop a River Eating Itself

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An Old Fashioned, some red lipstick and a black dress…sigh, there’s just something undeniable about a good ol’ classic. The beloved Vegas showgirl may be an endangered species these days (insert tear), but “VEGAS! THE SHOW” preserved those feather-clad beauties and the likes of an era when everything was flashier and dripping with sophistication. What’s that you ask? Can a show filled with gorgeous and talented women a la Rat Pack era really exist in the here and now? Oh yes my friend, it sure can and all we have to say is raise that curtain and let the good times roll. With a little song, a lot of dance and that certain sultry allure that only old timey Vegas could pull off, this is a trip down memory lane and, well, it’s pretty legit. The costumes are fun, funky, sexy and so real. Ok, well maybe not the candy-themed costumes but hell, their Sammy Davis Jr. sure had us pining for an autograph. For a city that was built on pure, raw talent and obviously dolla dolla bills, this show celebrates iconic moments from the city's rich entertainment history through the decades that made the Vegas we know and love today. And we’ll tip our top hats to that.
RockSinCity
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Las Vegas Blew Up Its Casinos — Then Used the Rubble to Stop a River Eating Itself

This video explains how Las Vegas turned the rubble of its imploded Strip casinos into armor for the Las Vegas Wash, a desert channel that was tearing itself apart just upstream of Lake Mead.

When the El Rancho was imploded on October 3, 2000, the Southern Nevada Water Authority claimed more than 10,000 tons of its concrete for the Las Vegas Wash, the channel that carries the valley's treated wastewater back to Lake Mead. Dry for at least a thousand years before the city existed, the wash has run year-round since 1958. It built more than 2,000 acres of marsh by the 1970s, then cut itself as much as 40 feet deeper and lost most of that marsh. The answer was a staircase of 21 rock weirs and bank armor made in large part from recycled casino concrete.

What's covered in this video:
• The El Rancho implosion on the Las Vegas Strip in October 2000, and why the water authority wanted the wreckage.
• How Las Vegas pumped its valley springs dry by 1962 while its treated wastewater turned the wash into a year-round river.
• The 1975 Caesars Palace flash flood, and the 1984 monsoon floods that turned the wash's erosion into a disaster: up to 40 feet deeper and 300 feet wider.
• Why it mattered: about 6.5 million cubic meters of sediment into Las Vegas Bay, algae blooms in 1986 and 2001, and a drinking-water intake within about 7.5 miles.
• How 21 weirs, most of them rock riprap, built from 2000 to 2019, turned the channel from a slide into a staircase of ponds.
• How concrete from 14 casinos, including the El Rancho, became part of the rock armor along more than 13 miles of the wash's banks.
• What came back: about 60 percent less suspended sediment, removal from Nevada's impaired-waters list in 2004, more than 600 acres replanted and more than 390 vertebrate species recorded.
• The Colorado River ledger: Nevada's 300,000 acre-foot share and the return-flow credits that make every indoor gallon count.
• The objections: a marsh far smaller than in the 1970s, hormone-disrupting chemicals found in carp, rising costs and a shrinking Lake Mead.

Las Vegas was named for meadows it pumped dry. The only marsh it has left is one it made out of its own wastewater, held together with pieces of its own past.

#LasVegas #LasVegasWash #LakeMead #ColoradoRiver #Nevada #RiverRestoration #Wetlands #Erosion #CasinoImplosion #WaterHistory #Documentary

CHAPTERS
0:00 The El Rancho comes down
0:49 An accidental river
2:06 The wash eats itself
4:19 A staircase of rock
6:06 Where the casinos went
8:02 What came back
9:58 The Colorado River ledger
12:21 Now the objections
Category
Las Vegas Casino
Tags
climate change, las vegas, us
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