Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Nevada has taken a dramatic, but not immediate, step toward limiting the amount of Colorado River water used in the most populous part of the nation's most arid state, after lawmakers gave Las Vegas-area water managers the levers to limit flows to single-family homes.
Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a law passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature to let the Southern Nevada Water Authority restrict the amount of water provided to homes -- if the federal government further dials back Nevada's share of water drawn from the river.
"This legislation builds on our efforts to protect sustainable growth on the county and state levels," the Republican governor said in a Tuesday signing statement that cited goals of balancing economic expansion with ensuring "clean and stable water into the future."
In the Las Vegas area, ornamental lawns are already banned, swimming pool sizes are limited, almost all water inside homes is recycled, "water cops" patrol for leaks and fountains on the Las Vegas Strip use reclaimed water. Water agencies in Southern California, Phoenix and Salt Lake City joined last year in widening calls to rip out thirsty turf.
The new law pushes the region ahead of other places in the U.S. West in efforts to crack down on water wasters. But it's not a first. A water district serving homes in a celebrity enclave near Los Angeles threatened last year to slow deliveries to a trickle for wealthy customers who find monetary fines no deterrent to busting their water budgets.
In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced last week that developers of projects in fast-growing Phoenix suburbs will have to show they can provide water to new homes from sources other than the depleted groundwater supply. The city of Scottsdale in January cut off water to homes in a neighboring unincorporated community, Rio Verde Foothills.
Southern Nevada Water Authority officials who sought the Nevada law insist they only intend to enact limits if necessary, and only after water authority board members approve a mechanism for limiting supply.
One method might be a device to restrict the flow to homes, Colby Pellegrino, water authority deputy general manager for resources, told the Legislature in testimony about the law.
"The future of the Colorado River is uncertain," said Bronson Mack, spokesperson for the agency that delivers water from the Lake Mead reservoir to some 2.4 million Las Vegas-area residents and a tourism-dependent economy that attracts some 40 million visitors per year.
Mack said Friday that 80 per cent of the nearly 580,000 single-family homes the authority serves would feel no effect if officials enforced the limit set in the law: 163,000 gallons (617,022 litres) of water per year. Apartment, hotel, commercial and industrial customers are exempt.
The average Las Vegas-area home uses about 122,000 gallons (461,820 litres), Mack said, well below the limit. The new law aims to curb excess water use by the top-most 20 per cent of residential users, who the authority says draw 45 per cent of the water.
"We want to make sure we have tools in the toolbox so we can manage water demands and continue to ensure we meet the community's water needs in the future," Mack said.
The law drew bipartisan support and backing from environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Great Basin Water Network. It comes amid increasingly aggressive efforts by federal, state, municipal and tribal officials in seven Western U.S. states that rely on the river to limit use.
In May, water administrators in Arizona, Nevada and California announced a breakthrough pact to cut their combined use of the dwindling Colorado River in exchange for funding from the U.S. government, and to avoid forced cuts by federal water administrators.
The Colorado River carries snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California in Mexico. Along the way it is tapped and dammed to provide some 40 million people with drinking water and hydropower, as well as crucial irrigation for farms that grow most of the nation's winter vegetables. It has become threatened in recent years by climate change, rising demand and a multi-decade drought.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.