The Nevada Assembly voted 30-12 in favor of a wide-ranging water conservation bill that could lead to caps on residential water use in Las Vegas.
Search results for:
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 U.S. Drought Monitor says storms dropped so much water this winter that less than one-quarter of Nevada remains in drought.
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.
Assembly Bill 313 would require the backfilling of open pit mines once mining companies are done extracting ore and other minerals from the site.
If approved, the legislation would make Nevada the first state to give a local water agency permanent say over how much water residents can use.
Forecasters expect the Colorado River to see some of its highest flows in more than a decade as snow melts off the Rockies this spring and summer.
The government on Thursday announced more than $250 million in new funding for water conservation agreements in Arizona and California to boost water levels at Lake Mead.