Wednesday December 4, 2024
KTNV —
It’s no secret Lake Mead has seen a decline in recent years — it currently sits at about 32% full capacity — but the larger water system that feeds the reservoir is also strained.
How the critical resource will be managed in the years to come is up for debate and will be a topic at the Colorado River Water Users Association Conference this week in Las Vegas.
Kyle Roerink is the executive director for the watchdog organization Great Basin Water Network. He told Channel 13:
“We’re dealing with an availability crisis. We’re dealing with a crisis where we know that 20% of the Colorado River has been lost in the past 24, 25 years. We know that the best scientists in the world are telling us that we could lose another 20% in the coming decades. So what we’re seeing right now is a conflict between coming to terms, coming to grips with this new availability challenge.”
Current rules that have been in place for Colorado River management since 2007 expire in 2026, but the seven states in talks for the next phase have not yet come to an agreement.