After dropping more than 50 feet since 2000, latest forecasts show Lake Mead rising by roughly 22 feet by the end of the year.
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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.
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.
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.
While states continue to negotiate over how to cut back on Colorado River water use, the Southern Nevada Water Authority is preparing for a “worst-case scenario.”
Tens of thousands of private well owners across parts of Nevada, California and Utah might be drinking water that contains unhealthy levels of arsenic, according to a new study from Desert Research Institute.
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.
Park officials say that a drier-than-normal fall and winter has dampened expectations for any big showing of flowers this year.
California has submitted its own plan for cuts to conserve water along the drought-stricken Colorado River, but its plan differs from one submitted by the six other states that also draw water from the river.
While not enough to fend off the falling water levels entirely, the snow that has dropped in recent weeks across the mountains that feed the river is expected to slow the decline at Lake Mead.
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 Las Vegas Review-Journal has named Carri Geer Thevenot as the newspaper’s assistant managing editor overseeing news and business coverage.
The Rocky Mountains snow season has had a good start, but whether it will be enough to buoy levels at Lake Mead and along the Colorado River remains to be seen.
Researchers studying the Tule Springs monument see a past Las Vegas that was much more lush, fed by springs that long ago ran dry.
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.
The Interior Department is considering revising rules to address the drought, including possibly reducing water released from dams on Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
A proposal to pump groundwater from rural Nevada to Las Vegas is dead, bringing relief to a coalition of odd bedfellows who fought it for more than 30 years. But concerns linger.
California, the Colorado River’s largest water user, has proposed cutting its use by 9 percent starting next year to fight the ongoing drought.