The annual fall drawdown of the Colorado River reservoir is part of an ongoing federal effort to restore populations of two endangered species.
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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.
Rising temperatures have sapped more than 10 trillion gallons of water from the Colorado River over the last two decades, a recent study shows.
The Las Vegas Valley Water District says a new charge seems to be working as intended — residents are using less water.
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.
The federal government laid out a pair of options to cut water use along the Colorado River and keep Lake Mead and Lake Powell from shrinking any more.
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.