New Nevada law aims to limit household water usage

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - A law that was signed by Governor Joe Lombardo aims to cut water usage at a time when Lake Mead is nearing record lows.

It gives the Southern Nevada Water Authority the power to limit residential water use to a half-acre foot of water per year for a single-family household.

“We need to be bold,” Assemblyman Howard Watts said in May, in support of the then-bill. “We need to be a bit aggressive in taking some of these measures in Southern Nevada.”

That half-acre foot requirement likely won’t affect most people in the Las Vegas Valley.

“The vast majority of residential customers would not feel any change whatsoever if this provision was ultimately to be implemented,” SNWA spokesperson Bronson Mack told FOX5 Monday.

Mack says 80% of Southern Nevadan homeowners are already using less than a half-acre foot of water per year.

“This is really geared toward that top ten percent of water users that use approximately 45% of all of the water provided to the residential sector,” he explained.

The bill, which became law June 6, has several different measures to save water, including one that pays property owners with a septic system to connect to a community sewer.

As of Monday night, Lake Mead sits at 1,054 feet, which is more than 200 feet below its full level. Dead pool status, when water stops flowing through the Hoover Dam, is 895 feet.

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