01
About the Utility
The Southern Nevada Water Authority was formed in 1991 to address Southern Nevada’s water needs on a regional basis. A board of one director from each of its seven member agencies governs it, and it has no employees of its own. The Griffith Water Project, operated by the Bureau of Reclamation in partnership with the Authority, delivers Colorado River water from Lake Mead to the Las Vegas Valley. The Authority levies a Wholesale Delivery Charge on each acre-foot of potable water, and its service area population was 2.3 million in 2024. Because it cannot levy property taxes, it finances capital through bond bank and revenue bonds and must set rates that cover operating costs and debt service.
02
Water System
Supply rests almost wholly on the Colorado River. Nevada’s allotment is 300,000 acre-feet a year, essentially all of it used for the municipal demands of Las Vegas, although return-flow credits allow larger diversions where consumptive use is reduced. Southern Nevada used approximately 198,000 acre-feet of river water in 2025, down on 2024. Its Alfred Merritt Smith and River Mountains plants treat the water by ozonation, and their latest water quality summaries report averages below federal limits. The binding constraint is shortage: a Tier 1 designation is projected to remain throughout 2026, reducing Nevada’s allocation by 21,000 acre-feet.
Total water delivered
Southern Nevada Water System total water delivered, acre-feet, FY2015–FY2024 (fiscal years ended 30 June)
Reported actuals from one ten-year table in the FY2024 audited financial report's statistical section.
Sources: Southern Nevada Water Authority, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report FY2024, Statistical Section.03
Infrastructure & Performance
The Authority’s assets form a regional system of treatment, pumping and transmission that in FY2024 included 175 miles of pipe and 28 pumping plants. The defining investments protect access to Lake Mead at low reservoir levels: a third drinking water intake, whose shafts and tunnel were completed in 2017, and the Low Lake Level Pumping Station. Network losses run below target, with an infrastructure leak index of 1.9 in FY2021-22 against a target of 3.0. Its latest performance actuals record no violations of drinking water standards.
04
Investment & Priorities
Capital delivery is accelerating: construction in progress rose to $339.6 million in FY2025, and the latest tentative budget projects a 65 percent increase in capital sources, funded by new debt and reserves. The long-range plan has two published totals: the 2020 amended Major Construction and Capital Plan estimates $3,165.6 million to complete, while the Authority’s web summary lists 52 projects at an estimated $2.55 billion. Work in progress has included the Horizon Lateral and Garnet Valley transmission projects.
05
Sustainability & Resilience
Lake Mead fell to its lowest point since it began filling, and the Authority expects higher temperatures with reduced snowpack and runoff. Conservation is the principal response, cutting per capita use by 58 percent between 2002 and 2025 even as the population grew. The river’s shared operating rules expire at the end of 2026, and Reclamation has released a draft environmental impact statement on what follows. It also met Nevada’s interim renewables target and reports being on track for the next milestone.
06
Key Challenges
- Protecting the Colorado River supply as the post-2026 operating rules for Lake Mead are rewritten.
- Maintaining delivery through a continuing Tier 1 shortage and historically low Lake Mead levels.
- Delivering further per capita savings towards the goal of 86 GPCD by 2035.
- Financing an expanding capital programme while carrying $3.0 billion of outstanding debt.
