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.
Lake Mead
Federal officials underscored the need for urgent action to deal with ongoing drought along the Colorado River at a water users conference in Las Vegas on Friday.
A parade of boats traveled the Las Vegas Strip as boating enthusiasts protest the possible closure of boating ramps at Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager John Entsminger said California and Arizona are going to have to shoulder the brunt of the unprecedented cuts the federal government says are needed next year.
“The common cause that we have to address is climate change induced lower flows,” commission Chair Anne Castle said. “That’s what we have to work on together. It’s not an enemy that we can defeat. It’s one that we have to live with.”
Things have only gotten worse along the river since Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton asked the Western states to come up with conservation plan, and that decline shows no signs of slowing down.
The National Park Service said, in a newsletter, that removing boat launch ramps at five lake locations remains an option.
Ironically, the community closest to Hoover Dam uses up to 500 million gallons a year one time and then casts it away — just a few miles from a shrinking Lake Mead.
A continued decline projects Lake Mead at 1,016 feet by October 2024, the Bureau of Reclamation estimates.
The National Park Service is asking for public input on how to manage launch ramps.
The National Park Service confirmed Wednesday the recovery of human skeletal remains from Lake Mead by a park service dive team.
A Clark County teen has died from a rare brain-eating amoeba that he was likely infected with while in Lake Mead, according to the Southern Nevada Health District.
Water waste investigators have intensified efforts across the Las Vegas Valley to enforce water use regulations. They could use the public’s help in the effort.
California, the Colorado River’s largest water user, has proposed cutting its use by 9 percent starting next year to fight the ongoing drought.
A new water rate structure that will impose hefty levies on the valley’s biggest residential water users was approved Tuesday by a Southern Nevada municipal water board.