Despite a wet winter that swelled the Colorado River’s reservoirs this year, Lake Mead will head into 2024 under a federal water shortage for a third consecutive year.
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Rising temperatures have sapped more than 10 trillion gallons of water from the Colorado River over the last two decades, a recent study shows.
Las Vegas kicked off this year using far less water than previous years. But a dry outlook for the rest of summer could put a dent in those water use reductions.
After dropping more than 50 feet since 2000, latest forecasts show Lake Mead rising by roughly 22 feet by the end of the year.
The two proposals show that “the tools available to the federal government are very blunt,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
Since the 1980s, Southern Nevada has been banking its unused Colorado River water, storing hundreds of billions of gallons away underground and in Lake Mead.
Nevada gets less than a 2 percent cut from the Colorado River’s waters, but the state actually uses far more water than that each year.
In the latest Conservation in the West Poll, low river levels was ranked as the most serious concern by Nevadans, ahead concerns over the rising costs of living and gas prices.
The water authority’s board of directors voted unanimously for $37 million for the Garnet Valley Water Transition System project, a series of pipelines that will bring water to the industrial park.
The park service has extended the deadline for comments on various proposals for how to manage and maintain launch ramps for motorized boaters at Lake Mead.