Water Rights: Feds Could Place Burden on Las Vegas to Protect California Farms

The federal government laid out a pair of options Tuesday to drastically cut water use along the Colorado River and keep Lake Mead and Lake Powell from crashing any further in the coming years.

One of the proposals would impose hefty cuts following a strict priority system, which would protect the California agricultural sector’s water rights while placing the heaviest burden on cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, while the other proposal would share those reductions more proportionally across Nevada, Arizona and California.