[ktsmith]

California gets ~10% of their water from the Colorado River System. They'll be getting less as more states use their full allocation and the surplus that California has been getting dries up. There is ongoing battling about distributing the water more fairly but that only delays the issues that Las Vegas faces with current population growth. The city has done quite a bit to provide incentive to residents to conserve water with things like tax credits for xeriscaping their properties instead of having lawns. They'll have to do quite a bit more to either curb the growth or find other sources of water.

As far as the distribution of the Colorado River Systems water goes, that's a mess that dates back to 1922.