The Latest Breaking News from Lake Mead

LOS ANGELES — The federal government on Tuesday laid out two options for preventing the Colorado River’s depleted reservoirs from falling to critically low levels, saying it could either impose cuts across the Southwest by following the water-rights priority system or by using an across-the-board percentage.

LOS ANGELES — Four months ago, the outlook for the Colorado River was so dire that federal projections showed imminent risks of reservoirs dropping to dangerously low levels.

A Native American tribe in Arizona has reached a deal with the U.S. government not to use some of its Colorado River water rights in return for $150 million and funding for a pipeline project

Discovery is at least sixth find of human remains in recreational areas of reservoir in last year

Coroners in Las Vegas say DNA analysis shows bone belonged to Donald Smith, 39, who drowned in 1974

LAS VEGAS — Among the sunken ships and undiscovered bodies at Lake Mead lies a boatload of rich history at one of the West's most popular outdoor attractions. Lake Mead National Recreation Area is America’s first and largest recreation area, offering swimming, boating, hiking, cycling, camping and fishing.

A proposal that would give Southern Nevada water managers the ability to limit residential water use would only affect the top 20% of users in the Las Vegas Valley, representatives from the Southern Nevada Water Authority told state lawmakers Monday.

LAS VEGAS — Getting states to agree to use less water is hard. Doing so in a matter of months is near impossible.

California and the other Colorado River Basin states are at odds over how to halt the precipitous decline of Lake Mead. The impasse reflects a century of failure to take a basic step left undone by the original Colorado River Compact.

LAS VEGAS — It’s not even March yet, but the mountains that feed the Colorado River already have seen more snow this winter than they normally would through an entire snow season.

LOS ANGELES — The desiccation of the Colorado River has left Lake Powell, the country’s second-largest reservoir, at just 23% of capacity, its lowest level since it was filled in the 1960s.