As adjacent Western states, California and Nevada share similar
issues related to drought and limited water resources. Both
states are participants in the 1922 Colorado River Compact and
the 2003 and 2007 Quantification Settlement Agreements to
allocate Colorado River deliveries. Also, about two-thirds of
Lake Tahoe lies in California and one-third in Nevada, and the
two states have formed a compact to work together on
environmental goals for the lake.
Southern California water districts are grappling with what the
fallout could look like if supplies from a critical source —
the rapidly drying Colorado River — are cut next
year. The US Bureau of Reclamation warned at a U.S.
Senate hearing in mid-June that seven western states had 60
days to voluntarily reach a deal: Cut Colorado River water use
by 2 to 4 million acre-feet in 2023 or face federally-mandated
cuts instead. It’s a massive amount — at least seven times more
than Nevada is entitled to in a year. … The Department
of the Interior is expected today to address the status of the
negotiations, the drought and future Colorado River conditions.
Two months ago, federal officials took the unprecedented step
of telling the seven states that depend on Colorado River water
to prepare for emergency cuts next year to prevent reservoirs
from dropping to dangerously low levels. The states and
managers of affected water agencies were told to come up with
plans to reduce water use drastically, by 2 million to 4
million acre-feet, by mid-August. After weeks of negotiations,
which some participants say have at times grown tense and
acrimonious, the parties have yet to reach an agreement. The
absence of a deal now raises the risk that the Colorado River
crisis — brought on by chronic overuse and the West’s drying
climate — could spiral into a legal morass.
Nowhere is the Southwest’s worst drought since the year 800
more evident than Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the pair of
artificial Colorado River reservoirs whose plunging levels
threaten major water and power sources for tens of millions of
people. Already, the region is being forced to adapt to the
sweeping effects of climate change, and the lakes and their
surrounding area are nearing an environmental point of no
return. … Lake Mead is projected to get down to 22
percent of its full capacity by year’s end, while Lake Powell
is expected to drop to 27 percent, according to estimations
from the federal Bureau of Reclamation. Both now sit at
record lows.
Tribal leaders stood proudly in front of a row
of flags from the 10 Indigenous communities whose
lands converge with the Colorado River. They spoke about their
status as equal players in the future of the Colorado and the
role they will play in the high-stakes negotiations to set
new management protocols for the river that more than
40 million people depend upon for their lives and livelihoods.
… They were part of tribal delegations
from throughout the Colorado River Basin gathered in Las
Vegas in December 2021 during the annual meeting of
the Colorado River Water Users Association.
Anticipated bursts of intense rain soaking Reno this week
prompted a flood watch from the National Weather Service. The
phenomenon, known as a pulsing storm, is caused by a monsoonal
flow that works its way up from the Gulf of California and even
the Gulf of Mexico. When the monsoonal flow collides with
high pressure, the result is “torrential rainfall,” said
Heather Richards, meteorologist with NWS Reno. The effect was
first felt Wednesday night when 1.22 inches of rain fell in
just one hour at the Reno airport. This overwhelmed the
drainage capabilities, flooded streams and washed out some
downtown streets.
Millions of people in the Western U.S. are at risk of seeing
reduced access to both water and power as two of the nation’s
biggest reservoirs continue to dry up inch by inch. The United
Nations issued a warning on Tuesday that the water levels in
Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at their lowest ever and are
getting perilously close to reaching “dead pool
status.” Such a status means that the water levels are so
low that water can’t flow downstream to power hydroelectric
stations. At Lake Mead, located in Nevada and
Arizona, the country’s largest artificial body of water, levels
have gotten so low that it’s essentially become a graveyard
– human remains, dried-out fish and a sunken
boat dating back to World War II …
The drought in the west has gotten so bad that bodies, World
War II boats and other artifacts have resurfaced at Lake Mead,
about 30 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. As the water dries up,
so-called “water cops” are going after anybody who’s wasting
it. Water waste investigators with the Las Vegas Valley Water
District patrol the roads and neighborhoods every day to hunt
for violations like broken sprinklers and excess watering.
I have lived in Las Vegas and have worked in the development
industry for 30 years. Since day one, water has been an
important issue. The current volume of Lake Mead compared to
years prior is clear evidence there is a serious water issue.
Residents, businesses and all those who depend on the Colorado
River should be paying close attention to the facts and
focusing on conservation policies that will help ensure we
utilize our water in the most responsible way possible to
preserve our future. -Written by Nat Hodgson, CEO of the Southern
Nevada Home Builders Association.
With hundreds of full-time employees, the Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources is one of the state’s
largest agencies, responsible for a wide array of activities,
from overseeing state parks and wildland fire crews to
regulating industrial pollution and managing water rights.
Earlier this month, the agency got a new leader. Gov. Steve
Sisolak appointed Jim Lawrence, who has worked at the agency
since 1998, to serve as the acting director. … The leadership
change comes at a time when the state — and the region
— face a number of ongoing interconnected environmental
issues, including a prolonged drought that has strained water
supplies, pressures on public land, increasingly risky wildfire
behavior and extreme heat.
States in the Colorado River basin are scrambling to propose
steep cuts in the water they’ll use from the river next year,
in response to a call by the federal government for immediate,
drastic efforts to keep the river’s main storage reservoirs
from reaching critically low levels. The request comes with the
Southwest still in the grip of a severe two-decade drought that
shows no signs of letting up…. [E]xperts in Western water
issues writing Thursday in the journal Science say significant
policy changes could stabilize the river over the long term,
even if the drought continues. But concessions that “may be
unthinkable at the moment” must be implemented soon, they
wrote.
Limiting the size of new swimming pools in and around Las Vegas
might save a drop in the proverbial bucket amid historic
drought and climate change in the West. Officials are taking
the plunge anyway, capping the size of new swimming pools at
single-family residential homes to about the size of a
three-car garage. Citing worries about dwindling drinking water
allocations from the drying-up Lake Mead reservoir on the
depleted Colorado River, officials in Clark County voted this
week to limit the size of new swimming pools to 600 square feet
(56 square meters) of surface area.
The Clark County Commission approved a new measure to mitigate
the falling water level of Lake Mead on Tuesday, limiting
residential pool sizes in the Las Vegas area. The
commission Tuesday unanimously approved a new ordinance
prohibiting the Las Vegas Valley Water District from serving
residents with pools with a total surface area of over 600
square feet. The new code will only apply to single-family
residential customers who received a pool permit for their
“pool(s), spa(s), and/or water feature(s)” after Sept. 1, 2022.
Recently, historic record-low water volume in Lake Mead and
Lake Powell has been headline news. While the trend of dropping
water levels at two of the nation’s largest water reservoirs
has been widely recognized for years (perhaps decades), a
discussion about what it truly means for those who rely on its
source for water and electricity downstream is rarely heard.
Lake Mead’s water level continues to fall to historic lows,
bringing the reservoir less than 150 feet away from “dead pool”
— so low that water cannot flow downstream from the dam. The
loss of water entirely from this source would be
catastrophic. -Written by Richard Thomas, a retired business owner
and author in La Mesa.
More extreme water cuts are all but certain in the Southwest
starting next year – including new water cuts for California –
according to the latest government forecast for the Colorado
River and Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir. Lake
Mead, which provides water to roughly 25 million people in
Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico, is losing water at an
alarming rate amid an extraordinary, multi-year drought made
worse by the climate crisis.
The Colorado River is approaching a breaking point, its
reservoirs depleted and western states under pressure to
drastically cut water use. It’s a crisis that scientists have
long warned was coming. Years before the current shortage,
scientists repeatedly alerted public officials who manage water
supplies that the chronic overuse of the river combined with
the effects of climate change would likely drain the Colorado’s
reservoirs to dangerously low levels. But these warnings by
various researchers — though discussed and considered by water
managers — went largely unheeded.
It was late 2020, less than a year into the pandemic, but Luis
Sinco wasn’t thinking about COVID-19. He was overwhelmed by
catastrophe. Fires were burning, glaciers were melting, and the
West was again in drought. But from talking to his kids and
friends and people around him, the award-winning Times
photographer sensed little dire urgency, little connection
between the climate crisis and the routines of everyday life.
… [Sinco] set off on his own. In between assignments, he
traveled roughly 1,500 miles, from the river’s headwaters in
the Rocky Mountains down to where the Colorado once regularly
reached its terminus, in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
For about three months every year, the Desert Southwest turns
into a magical landscape of pastel hues, arcing bolts of
electricity and oases of life in an otherwise sandy,
cactus-studded chaparral. Some communities pick up half of
their annual rainfall in a few short afternoons, while others
flood as dry arroyos transform into gushing rapids. The
culprit? The Southwest monsoon — a seasonal wind shift that
pumps both Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean moisture northward
to New Mexico, Arizona and parts of Southern California,
Nevada, Utah and Colorado.
Momentum is building for a unique
interstate deal that aims to transform wastewater from Southern
California homes and business into relief for the stressed
Colorado River. The collaborative effort to add resiliency to a
river suffering from overuse, drought and climate change is being
shaped across state lines by some of the West’s largest water
agencies.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Las Vegas, known for its searing summertime heat and glitzy casino fountains, is projected to get even hotter in the coming years as climate change intensifies. As temperatures rise, possibly as much as 10 degrees by end of the century, according to some models, water demand for the desert community is expected to spike. That is not good news in a fast-growing region that depends largely on a limited supply of water from an already drought-stressed Colorado River.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Nowhere is the domino effect in
Western water policy played out more than on the Colorado River,
and specifically when it involves the Lower Basin states of
California, Nevada and Arizona. We are seeing that play out now
as the three states strive to forge a Drought Contingency Plan.
Yet that plan can’t be finalized until Arizona finds a unifying
voice between its major water players, an effort you can read
more about in the latest in-depth article of Western Water.
Even then, there are some issues to resolve just within
California.
It’s high-stakes time in Arizona. The state that depends on the
Colorado River to help supply its cities and farms — and is
first in line to absorb a shortage — is seeking a unified plan
for water supply management to join its Lower Basin neighbors,
California and Nevada, in a coordinated plan to preserve water
levels in Lake Mead before
they run too low.
If the lake’s elevation falls below 1,075 feet above sea level,
the secretary of the Interior would declare a shortage and
Arizona’s deliveries of Colorado River water would be reduced by
320,000 acre-feet. Arizona says that’s enough to serve about 1
million households in one year.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This issue of Western Water discusses the challenges
facing the Colorado River Basin resulting from persistent
drought, climate change and an overallocated river, and how water
managers and others are trying to face the future.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this 24×36
inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson River, and
its link to the Truckee River. The map includes Lahontan Dam and
Reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming areas in the basin.
Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and geography, the
Newlands Project, land and water use within the basin and
wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant from the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan Basin
Area Office.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Truckee River Basin, including
the Newlands Project, Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe. Map text
explains the issues surrounding the use of the Truckee-Carson
rivers, Lake Tahoe water quality improvement efforts, fishery
restoration and the effort to reach compromise solutions to many
of these issues.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, illustrates the
water resources available for Nevada cities, agriculture and the
environment. It features natural and manmade water resources
throughout the state, including the Truckee and Carson rivers,
Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake and the course of the Colorado River
that forms the state’s eastern boundary.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and the country of Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch
map, which is suitable for framing, explains the river’s
apportionment, history and the need to adapt its management for
urban growth and expected climate change impacts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
The Colorado River provides water to 40 million people and 4
million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000
square miles in the southwestern United States. The 32-page
Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River covers the history of the
river’s development; negotiations over division of its water; the
items that comprise the Law of the River; and a chronology of
significant Colorado River events.
This printed issue of Western Water examines how the various
stakeholders have begun working together to meet the planning
challenges for the Colorado River Basin, including agreements
with Mexico, increased use of conservation and water marketing,
and the goal of accomplishing binational environmental
restoration and water-sharing programs.
This issue of Western Water examines the challenges facing state,
federal and tribal officials and other stakeholders as they work
to manage terminal lakes. It includes background information on
the formation of these lakes, and overviews of the water quality,
habitat and political issues surrounding these distinctive bodies
of water. Much of the information in this article originated at
the September 2004 StateManagement Issues at Terminal Water
Bodies/Closed Basins conference.
