Las Vegas, Nevada – The Desert Mirage Running Dry
Las Vegas sits at the epicenter of America’s water crisis, clinging to the edge of survival as Lake Mead plummets to historically dangerous levels. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s 2024 August 24-month study forecasted a Lake Mead elevation between 1,050 feet and 1,075 feet for Jan. 1, 2025. A tier one shortage will remain in effect through 2025 for Lower Basin operations. The city’s lifeline, the Colorado River, has been the subject of increasingly desperate conservation measures.
Through one of the nation’s most progressive and comprehensive water conservation programs, Southern Nevada has reduced its per capita water use by 55 percent between 2002 and 2024, even as the population increased by approximately 829,000 residents during that time. Yet even these impressive conservation efforts can’t mask the harsh reality: due to ongoing drought conditions and a hotter, drier climate, the lake’s elevation has dropped more than 150 feet, and water levels are expected to decline even further.
What makes Las Vegas’s situation particularly precarious is its near-total dependence on the Colorado River system. Under this shortage designation, Nevada’s available Colorado River supply is reduced by 21,000 AFY. The city has built backup systems, including a third drinking water intake and low lake level pumping stations, but these are band-aids on a hemorrhaging situation that threatens to leave Sin City high and dry.
Phoenix, Arizona – The Desert City’s Dangerous Gamble
Phoenix represents perhaps the most audacious bet in American urban planning – building a metropolitan area of 1.6 million people in the middle of one of the nation’s harshest deserts. “We’re sitting in the middle of the desert, trying to grow a city. Which defies logic, for many people,” Cynthia Campbell, the city’s water resource management adviser, told the Phoenix New Times. This frank admission reveals the fundamental challenge facing Arizona’s capital…