Nevada is the first state in the nation to give a local water agency the power to limit individual home water use.
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As much as one-third of Nevada’s normal share of the Colorado River would stay in Lake Mead, but officials say Las Vegas has been getting ready for this for years.
Nevada, California and Arizona have reached agreement on a plan to dramatically reduce water use along the Colorado River.
A bill that advocates pitched as a major step toward fixing Nevada’s growing groundwater problem was all but dead in the state Legislature on Friday.
If the bill were to become law, Nevada would be the first state to give a water agency the power to cap the amount of water that flows into individual homes.
A torrent of water was released from Glen Canyon Dam last month as a way of shoring up the sandbars and beaches along the Colorado River.
Officials say more time is needed to review the controversial plan to pump groundwater from rural western Utah valleys.
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.
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.