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Lower Colorado River Reservoir Evaporation the Focus of New Analysis

/in , , /by /KUNCby Luke Runyon

A Nevada water agency has taken the first concrete step toward accounting for evaporation and other losses in the Colorado River’s Lower Basin. The new analysis attempts to pinpoint exactly how much water is lost, and who should cut back to bring the system closer to a balance between supply and demand. An analysis compiled by the Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates the total amount of water lost in the river’s lower reaches. If implemented in its current form, the proposal would translate to significant cutbacks for users in Nevada, Arizona and California.

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California Water Crisis: In-Depth Look at Colorado River Water Use

/in , , /by /ABC7by Rob McMillan

Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States and a critical source of water for Nevada, Arizona and California. But right now, it’s at only about 25 percent of total capacity.

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State Puts $100M Toward Water Conservation

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Review-Journal

More money is coming down the pipeline for Nevada’s efforts to conserve water amid a historic megadrought that has put the pinch on supplies in the Southwest.

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Nevada Looks to Conservation as Colorado River Dwindles

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Daniel Rothberg

Only a few miles from the Las Vegas Strip, in the Mojave Desert, is an unlikely scene: A county park with walking trails and thick vegetation that circles a vibrant rush of flowing water.

Known as the Las Vegas Wash, the water running through this channel is a crucial part of how Nevada has managed to keep its net Colorado River use below its allocation, despite booming population growth and two decades of persistent drought, worsened by a changing climate.

 

(AP EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a collaborative series on the Colorado River as the 100th anniversary of the historic Colorado River Compact approaches. The Associated Press, The Colorado Sun, The Albuquerque Journal, The Salt Lake Tribune, The Arizona Daily Star and The Nevada Independent are working together to explore the pressures on the river in 2022.)

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Campaign Aims to Dispel Common Myths About Water Use in Las Vegas

/in , , /by /Las Vegas Sunby Ray Brewer

As soon as the U.S. Department of the Interior last month announced that Nevada would lose 8% of its water allotment from the Colorado River next year amid the continuing drought, officials with the Southern Nevada Water Authority started fielding questions from concerned residents.

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7 States and Federal Government Lack Direction on Cutbacks From the Colorado River

/in , , /by /KUNCby Luke Runyon

As the Colorado River shrinks, the seven states in the western United States that rely on it for water and power need to cut their use dramatically to keep the biggest reservoirs from getting critically low, according to federal analysts.

But a recent deadline for a plan to conserve an unprecedented amount of water came and went without many specifics from either the states or the federal government on how to achieve the cutbacks.

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Drought Driving Tough Talks on Water Cuts

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

Nevada and two of its neighboring southwestern states are still working on ways to drastically cut water use from the Colorado River as a deadline set by the federal government to address the worsening conditions along the river quickly approaches.

John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said his organization is still at the table with the other so-called lower basin states of California and Arizona as they work to respond to a call from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to propose unprecedented cuts in water use along the river in order to protect critical power and water delivery infrastructure at lakes Mead and Powell.

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In the Wake of Fires and Floods

/in , /by /High Country Newsby Jonathan Thompson

The image that popped up on my Twitter feed last week was beyond alarming, it was  surreal: An entire house, a big one, sliding off its foundations and floating slowly down the muddy, swollen Yellowstone River. It was such an unexpected sight, so bizarre, that I could do little more than gawk at it, mutter an expletive and scroll down to the next crazy image of disaster.

But then I read the caption, and that stopped me: This wasn’t just some random building, it was an apartment complex that housed several Yellowstone National Park employees and their families.

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Under Federal Pressure, Colorado River Water Managers Face Unprecedented Call for Conservation

/in , , /by /KUNCby Alex Hager and Luke Runyon

Colorado River water managers are facing a monumental task. Federal officials have given leaders in seven Western states a new charge — to commit to an unprecedented amount of conservation and do it before an August deadline.

Without major cutbacks in water use, the nation’s two largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — are in danger of reaching critically low levels.

On June 14, Bureau of Reclamation commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton came to a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing with a prognosis, a goal and a threat.

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Opinion: Why Is Almost No One Planning for a Future Without the Colorado River?

/in , /by /AZ Centralby Joanna Allhands

You’d think that, given how dangerously low Lake Mead is getting, we’d have a good idea of what life might look like without that water.

Yet few major players are modeling for a future without Colorado River water – or even a future in which we are asked to live on markedly less of it.

Ironically, the deeper the lake plunges, the more reluctant water managers seem to be about fleshing out the worst-case scenario.

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