Tag Archive for: Lake Mead

Nevada Legislature Bill Would Urge Federal Government to Protect the Colorado River

/in , /by /Fox 5 Las Vegasby Michael Bell

If passed, a bill in the Nevada Legislature would urge the United States Bureau of Reclamation to consider more measures to protect and manage the Colorado River.

SJR 3 reads that the Colorado River is the most vital water source in Nevada, and much of the western states, including 22 Native American tribes and Mexico.

Ninety percent of Southern Nevada’s water supply comes from the Colorado River via Lake Mead, which is still facing unprecedented drought and aridification.

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Colorado Snowpack Above Average, Snowmelt Heading to Lake Mead and Lake Powell

/in , , /by /KTNV Las Vegasby Joe Moeller

California and Colorado are both receiving impressive amounts of snow.

That’s good for us because snow in the Rocky Mountains ultimately ends up in the Colorado River, which leads to Lake Mead.

That snow is hitting places like the Copper Mountain Ski Resort, which sits 9,700 feet up in Frisco, Colorado. That’s about an hour and a half west of Denver.

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Colorado River Basin Reservoirs Still Face Grim Outlook Despite Healthy Snowpack

/in , , /by /The Colorado Sunby Shannon Mullane

The healthy snowpack whitening Colorado’s mountain peaks has given water officials some breathing room to manage the Colorado River Basin’s ongoing drought. The challenge will be not to squander it.

As winter storms wind down, water managers and policymakers are mulling over decisions about how to release and retain water in shrunken reservoirs across the basin, which supports 40 million people across the West.

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How Nevada Uses More Than Its Tiny Share of the Colorado River Each Year

/in , /by /Las Vegas Review-Journalby Colton Lochhead

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, all while staying well within its century-old legal water rights.

It’s all thanks to an extensive water recycling program in the Las Vegas Valley and something called “return flow credits,” which allow the state to pull extra water out of Lake Mead for every gallon of wastewater treated and returned to the reservoir via the Las Vegas Wash.

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Snow Readings Give Reprieve to Colorado River Shortage

/in , , /by /The Desert Reviewby Betty Miller

“It’s snowing!” is how Imperial Irrigation District Water Manager Tina Shields began her hydrology report at the March 21 regular meeting. The water manager’s monthly reports have taken a turn to the positive after years of dire Lake Mead elevation readings.

Although Central California irrigates with water from different sources other than the Colorado River, the Valley’s sole source of water, Shields reported the continuous atmospheric rivers have been devastating to the Central Valley farmland with reports of flooding and washing out of ground.

“Every drought is followed by a flood,” she said. “They have had 250% above average of rain, the photos of two-story houses buried in snow and ski lifts unusable because they are covered in snow are crazy. They are actually talking about Fourth of July skiing and that fields will stay flooded for months. It is all time record breaking.”

California’s Drought is Not Over

/in , , /by /Capital & Mainby Mark Schapiro

More than a dozen atmospheric rivers in succession prompted people to think: The California drought is over! The levees are breaking, hundreds of people are being displaced by the raging waters, rainfall is breaking records, and story after story suggest we are headed out of the decade-long drought that has devastated agriculture and wiped out the state’s water reserves. Whew. Dodged a bullet.

One part of that story is true. By mid-March, two-thirds of the state was officially out of drought.

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Snowpack Rising: Good Water News for Now, but Lake Mead Unlikely to See a Difference

/in , , /by /8 News Nowby Greg Haas

Snow is forecast every day this week in the heart of the Colorado Rockies, and snowpack levels have climbed to nearly 150% as warmer spring temperatures near.

It could be the winter we remember as one of the bright spots in a drought that defined the past two decades in the Colorado River Basin.

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Persistent Drought and Overdevelopment Cause Record Low Water Levels for Tens of Millions

/in , , /by /PBS Newshourby Stephanie Sy

Despite a rainy and snowy winter out west, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the reservoirs that provide water for 40 million Americans, are at record low levels due to the ongoing megadrought. Arizona is set to lose over 20% of its Colorado River water allotment this year alone. As Stephanie Sy reports, that’s leaving communities across the state scrambling to find alternatives.

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Opinion: The West’s Weather Whiplash Should Not Influence Long-Term Water Management

/in , , /by /The Hillby Thomas Piechota

There’s a water contradiction in the West with serious long-term water scarcity in low reservoirs and depleting groundwater tables, while California is in the middle of an extremely wet and snowy winter. As water levels in dangerously depleted Lake Mead and Lake Powell drop to record lows, California has experienced one of the wettest winters on record, with a statewide snowpack that’s almost 200 percent of normal for this time of year and a flooding risks from rain and snow events in March.

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Has Rain Helped Lake Mead Water Levels?

/in , , /by /Newsweekby Robyn White

A particularly wet season has swept across the southwestern U.S., a region that has suffered under a severe megadrought for over two decades. But what has this meant for Colorado River reservoir Lake Mead?

Storms of rain and snow have hit California particularly badly in recent months, and have spread into neighboring states like Nevada. Reservoirs like Lake Mead rely on seasonal snowmelt and rainfall.

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