Southern Nevada Water Authority

Set amid the wheat fields and melon patches west of downtown, the 60-acre Yuma Desalting Plant is a technological marvel — capable of cleaning 73 million gallons of brackish farm runoff a day, enough for 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Built in 1992 at a cost to the federal government of $250 million, the plant was meant to help the U.S. meet its treaty obligations with Mexico involving the Colorado River and to demonstrate how desalination could be a major answer to slaking the growing thirst of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Phoenix.

Set amid the wheat fields and melon patches west of downtown, the 60-acre Yuma Desalting Plant is a technological marvel — capable of cleaning 73 million gallons of brackish farm runoff a day, enough for 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Built in 1992 at a cost to the federal government of $250 million, the plant was meant to help the U.S. meet its treaty obligations with Mexico involving the Colorado River and to demonstrate how desalination could be a major answer to slaking the growing thirst of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Phoenix.

Fast on the heels of the new watering ordinances that took effect June 1, the has begun a cash-for-grass program. Single-family homes served by the DWP will be eligible to receive $1 for every square foot of turf they replace with less thirsty alternatives. For years, Southern California water managers paid scant attention to outdoor water conservation. Then they saw stunning savings achieved in Nevada.

Fast on the heels of the new watering ordinances that took effect June 1, the has begun a cash-for-grass program. Single-family homes served by the DWP will be eligible to receive $1 for every square foot of turf they replace with less thirsty alternatives. For years, Southern California water managers paid scant attention to outdoor water conservation. Then they saw stunning savings achieved in Nevada.

Southern Nevada water officials declared a drought watch and called for strict measures to cut water use this summer. Effective in June, Las Vegas-area homeowners won't be able to water landscaping as often and won't be allowed to plant grass in frontyards, according to a plan adopted unanimously by the Southern Nevada Water Authority. Nevada is getting less water from the Colorado River because of a dispute among California water agencies that prompted Interior Secretary Gale A.

A plan to pump billions of gallons of groundwater from a rural valley to Las Vegas was cut to less than half the requested amount by the state's water engineer. An order issued by state engineer Tracy Taylor says the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which requested about 91,000 acre-feet of water yearly from Spring Valley, can pump 40,000 acre-feet of water per year for 10 years.

Lake Mead's water level probably will slip to drought alert status by the end of the year and could create an emergency water shortage by 2005, according to a Southern Nevada Water Authority official. Deputy Chief Kay Brothers told board members that the snowpack on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains isn't deep enough to end the worst drought in more than a century.

Taking another step toward power independence, the Corona City Council has voted to use its eminent-domain powers to take over Southern California Edison's electric distribution lines. The council unanimously approved the takeover resolution late Monday, starting what could be a long legal process. Edison said that its property isn't for sale and that it would fight to keep it.

Las Vegas was a blip on the population charts when seven Western states began divvying up the riches of the Colorado River. The Colorado River Compact was crafted in 1922 when agriculture dominated politics and the economy, and this tiny rail stop had 4,859 residents. The compact allocated 15 million acre-feet of water annually to the seven states. California won the lion's share, 4.4 million acre-feet, followed by Colorado with 3.9 million, Arizona 2.8 million, Utah 1.

On Aug. 7, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority called for federal disaster relief to address the consequences of water scarcity in the Colorado River system. On Friday, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it would be forced to cut the flow of water into Lake Mead in 2014 to a historic low. Dominoes may now fall from California to Washington, D.C. A nearly century-old body of agreements and legal decisions known as the Law of the River regulates water distribution from the Colorado River among seven states and Mexico.

The federal government Thursday ushered in a new era of shortage on the Colorado River, adopting a blueprint for how it will tighten the spigot on the West's most important water source. The guidelines, more than two years in the making, come in the eighth year of the worst drought in the century-long historic record of the Colorado River, which supplies water to 25 million people and 1 million acres of farmland.

Voters in Nevada's two most populous counties told lawmakers in the state with the largest percentage of smokers in the nation that they don't want kids and cigarettes in the same building. Clark and Washoe counties approved virtually identical advisory measures Tuesday to toughen local restrictions on smokers beyond state law and ban smoking entirely in places children are likely to be. Both issues will be submitted to the next Legislature.