Lake Mead at sunup, July 24, 2024.

Out toward the top left corner of this picture – maybe a little bit left, out of the frame – is the point where the Southern Nevada Water Authority gets its water out of Lake Mead. There’s nothing to see – the intake is at the bottom of the reservoir.

Completed in 2015, with a new pump station first turned on in early 2022, the intake system represents a ~$1.5 billion investment in shoring up the reliability of the Las Vegas, NV, water supply as Lake Mead and the Colorado River decline.

I hitched a ride yesterday on SNWA’s water quality sampling boat, and they took me over to the face of “Saddle Island” (not an island any more with the reservoir this low!) to see the areas where the old intakes are. Back in 2022, one of the old intakes emerged above water. Had Las Vegas not invested in the new system, we would have faced huge risk to the water supply of a community of 2 million-plus people, and terrible choices, as Mead dropped.

I tried to peer down into the water to see the pipe, but Mead’s up high enough now that it’s no longer visible. But it’s an important place, I wanted to try to see it, which is why I hitched the boat ride. Mead here is doing double duty: water storage for Phoenix, Los Angeles, and the farm districts of the Lower Colorado, but also forebay for the pumping system for Las Vegas’s water supply. Multiple purposes.

Las Vegas spent the $1.5b not for new water, but to provide reliability for the water they’ve got. But in doing that, removing (reducing?) the risk to a city of 2 million people, Las Vegas also removed the risk that the basin as a whole would have faced if it had to chose between Las Vegas’s supply and the needs of downstream users as the reservoir’s levels dropped toward the intake pipes.

Newshour link

I’m here for today’s (July 24, 2024) PBS Newshour “Tipping Point” show. 5 p.m. Mountain Time (7 eastern, 4 Pacific), livestream link here.