Nevada bill would push cities to further account for heat mitigation

Cars drive past recently planted trees at Gary Reese Freedom Park Thursday, June 9, 2022. In an effort to combat the urban heat island effect, the city of Las Vegas is offering tree planting with irrigation equipment to some residents for $20. Photo by Wade Vandervort

A proposal being considered in the Nevada Legislature calls on local governments with more than 100,000 residents to include heat mitigation efforts like cooling spaces, public drinking water and shade over paved surfaces in their master plan.

Las Vegas last summer had a record 112 days with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. On July 7, a new high-temperature mark was established at 120 degrees. Assembly Bill 96 recognizes the public health risk and calls for discussion and additional coordination from municipalities.  

“These rising temperatures, combined with urban heat island effect, set the stage for truly dangerous conditions for Nevada citizens,” said Assemblymember Venise Karris, D-Las Vegas, who proposed the legislation.

Individual jurisdictions would decide how many cooling centers, shaded structures or another heat mitigation measure to implement, said Marco Velotta, chief sustainability officer for the city of Las Vegas.

For example, Clark County opens cooling stations at recreation centers during extreme heat warnings.

Las Vegas was already working on heat mitigation initiatives as part of its 2050 master plan, Velotta said. Neighborhoods around downtown Las Vegas, including east Las Vegas, the Historic Westside and the Charleston corridor, have higher vulnerabilities and less capacity to adapt, Velotta said Tuesday during the bill’s testimony. 

These neighborhoods are considered more at risk because they lack adequate tree coverage and green space.

Las Vegas wants to plant 60,000 trees in the next three decades to help mitigate the problem, Velotta said. 

The “Las Vegas Tree Initiative” aims to combat the urban heat island effect by increasing tree canopy coverage and building more green space within neighborhoods hit hardest by a combination of extreme heat and lack of greenery. It’s part of the city’s 2050 master plan.

The bill would help with in-depth studies on things that cities can do to address extreme heat like when to operate cooling places, how the electrical grid would be impacted and how to keep people safe if their air conditioning stops working, Velotta said.

“These are plans that change over time,” Velotta said. “This helps us with coordinating amongst the other municipalities.” 

A similar proposal passed the Nevada Senate and Nevada Assembly in 2023 but was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo. In his veto letter, Lombardo said there several heat-mitigation efforts are already being implemented.

“We can all look around and see the areas that have less trees (and) have more pavement,” said Christi Cabrera-Georgeson, deputy director of Nevada Conservation League. “We know those areas are going to be hotter.”

In 2024, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration selected the Reno-Sparks area for a heat island mapping project, Cabrera-Georgeson said. The project looked at 200 square miles during different times of the day to know which areas became hotter and where the city needed to address the urban heat island effect.

Additionally, UNLV received $5 million from the U.S. Forest Service to mitigate hot temperatures. The five-year project started in January 2024 to engage and educate residents of Clark County about trees in cities and plant drought-tolerant trees in the community.

“Things are really happening exponentially,” Cabrera-Georgeson said. “We need to be acting as quickly as we can to really protect public health, protect our communities and protect Nevada as a whole.”