Running a Water Utility on the Edge of “Dead Pool”
Executive Exchange — Episode feature with Doa Ross, Deputy General Manager of Engineering, Las Vegas Valley Water District & Southern Nevada Water Authority
When most people think of Las Vegas, they picture neon, casinos, and air-conditioned spectacle in the middle of the desert. Water professionals, however, see something else entirely:
2.3 million residents + 40 million visitors a year, all dependent on a river that’s been in drought for more than two decades.
In this episode of the Exec Exchange, Dr. Piers Clark speaks with Doa Ross, Deputy General Manager for Engineering at both the Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) y el Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA), about what it really takes to keep a city alive in a parched basin.
One Region, Two Utilities: Who Does What?
The governance model in Southern Nevada is deliberately split:
- SNWA is the regional agency
- Manages Colorado River resources and infrastructure
- Plans long-term supply and environmental sustainability
- Leads conservation and serves as el unified voice on the river for Southern Nevada
- Treats all the drinking water before handing it off to retailers
- Distrito de Aguas del Valle de Las Vegas is the largest retail utility
- Serves about 70% of the region’s 2.3 million residents
- Delivers treated drinking water to homes and businesses across the valley
Other local retailers – North Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, Nellis Air Force Base – buy treated water from SNWA as well, but LVVWD is the heavyweight.
That separation of bulk supply and retail delivery allows the region to speak with one coordinated voice on the Colorado River while still maintaining local service models.
Living with a 22-Year Drought
If you’re still thinking of this as a “dry spell”, you’re behind the curve.
- The region is now in its 22nd year of drought on the Colorado River.
- 2002 remains the driest year on record for the basin.
- Seven U.S. states and Mexico are all tied to a hydrology that simply no longer behaves the way the original allocations assumed.
Ross is clear: this is no just a supply problem. It’s a use and demand management challenge, and everyone in the basin is having to rethink their risk posture.
Engineering Against “Dead Pool”
For Southern Nevada, the primary surface source is Lake Mead, created by Hoover Dam – the last major dam and largest reservoir on the system.
Historically, federal infrastructure provided the first intake for Las Vegas in the 1960s. SNWA then went through a series of increasingly defensive engineering moves:
- Intake 1 – original federal intake
- Intake 2 – built in the 1990s at a lower elevation, anticipating declining lake levels
- Intake 3 (the “third straw”) – completed after 2002 exposed just how bad things could get
Why the third straw? Because of a brutal physical reality called dead pool.
- At about 895 feet above sea level, Lake Mead hits an elevation where water can no longer flow through Hoover Dam.
- Below that, California, Arizona, and Mexico would effectively lose their Colorado River supply from Mead – the dam becomes a plug.
- SNWA built Intake 3 roughly 20 feet below dead pool, ensuring Southern Nevada can still physically access water in the lake even if the rest of the system can’t.
That makes Southern Nevada, in Ross’s words, “the strongest with access to water on the Colorado River” from an infrastructure standpoint.
But the point isn’t to hoard. It’s to be prepared while working cooperatively with the other basin states to make sure nobody ever has to find out what operating at dead pool actually looks like.
The engineering buys time. The politics and conservation are supposed to make sure that time is never tested.
Indirect Potable Reuse at City Scale
Infrastructure is only half the story. The other half is how Las Vegas treats every drop used indoors.
The region has built a highly efficient indirect potable reuse loop:
- All indoor water use – in hotels, homes, schools, casinos, and businesses – goes to wastewater treatment.
- Those plants apply advanced treatment to bring the water up to near-drinking-water standards.
- Treated effluent is discharged to the Las Vegas Wash and wetlands, which flow back into Lake Mead.
- SNWA later re-withdraws that water from the lake, treats it again, and sends it back into the potable system.
Effectively, Southern Nevada is recycling the vast majority of its indoor water use. From a basin accounting perspective, return flows back to Mead allow the region to offset part of its consumptive use.
The critical distinction, which underpins all their public communication:
- Indoor water is largely recoverable.
- Outdoor water – on lawns, evaporation, overspray – is mostly lost for good.
So the conservation narrative is laser-focused on what truly matters.
Driving a Culture of Outdoor Conservation
Southern Nevada’s conservation programme is not a gentle suggestion; it’s a civic norm.
Key elements include:
- Aggressive turf removal: Residents and businesses are paid to remove non-functional grass and replace it with desert-appropriate landscaping.
- Car wash standards: Only car washes that recycle water are promoted; washing your car at home with a running hose is heavily discouraged.
- Targeted messaging: Every campaign reinforces the same idea – indoor use returns to the system, outdoor waste does not.
And yes, there is a social enforcement element:
“We quite literally have an app for people to report other people so they can get investigated.”
In other words, in Las Vegas, being visibly wasteful with water is becoming a social liability, not a status symbol. That’s a significant cultural shift in a city better known for excess.
Lessons for Water Sector Leaders
For utilities and agencies elsewhere, the Southern Nevada story offers several sharp takeaways:
- Separate bulk resource management from retail delivery
A regional authority like SNWA can manage river allocations, conservation strategy, and treatment at scale while retailers focus on customer service and local networks. That unified upstream voice is invaluable in shared basins. - Plan for the hydrology you’re getting, not the one you grew up with
Two decades of drought aren’t a blip. Building a third intake below dead pool is exactly the kind of unglamorous, high-stakes resilience investment many regions will need to consider. - Exploit every realistic reuse opportunity
Las Vegas demonstrates that indirect potable reuse at scale is not science fiction – it’s operational reality. If your region is still debating reuse as a last resort, you’re probably behind. - Be honest about what is truly consumptive
Differentiating between indoor (recoverable) and outdoor (lost) use allows far more surgical conservation messaging and policy. Not all litres are equal. - Shift social norms, not just tariffs
Enforcement tools, visibility, and community pride all help make conservation a shared project, not just an individual burden. When your customers start policing waste themselves, you know the narrative has landed.
A Personal Note on Leadership and Careers
The conversation ends on a more personal but relevant note. Ross, who joined the organisation in 2000 and worked her way up through design, development review, infrastructure management and now executive leadership, shares the best advice she ever received as a young woman:
Build your career first, then your family, so you always have a strong professional foundation to return to.
It’s the kind of pragmatic guidance that underpins the whole Southern Nevada story:
plan ahead, design for the worst case, and give yourself options before you desperately need them.
To hear the full discussion with Doa Ross on drought, dead pool, indirect reuse, and building a conservation culture in one of the driest, most visited cities on Earth, listen to this episode of the Exec Exchange.