Nevada will give up 50,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water a year over the next two years under a federal operating framework released Friday that cuts distributions to three states.

In a move that officials stressed is not consolidation, Reno and Sparks city councils have unanimously voted to join their fire departments under one chief.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife's Karelian Bear Dogs have become indispensable components of the department's operations, flushing bears from urban dens, locating injured bears and hazing human-habituated bears by chasing and nipping at them as they are released back into the wild. The goal is to ensure bears can still live in places such as Tahoe that are now teeming with humans.

Opponents to the federal government's efforts to sell 2,000 acres of public land in and around the Anaconda Copper Mine site to Atlantic Richfield Company are optimistic their plea for a preliminary injunction will be granted by a federal judge.

More than 60 percent of the homeowner insurance cancellations in 2024 were in Washoe County, which houses eight of the top 10 ZIP for cancellations and declinations.

The Nevada State Engineer's Office has issued cease-and-desist letters to the developer of what will be the largest solar project in the state, accusing the company of illegally pulling water for construction from a nearby geothermal plant and a local rancher in Lyon County.

A more than 1,600-acre land conveyance to the state is being turned into Nevada's 28th, and newest, state park. The property, which started as an agricultural ranch before operating as a divorce ranch in the 1940s and serving as a testing ground for U.S. Army military vehicles, is located about 5 miles east of Dayton State Park and borders the Carson River for 4.5 miles.

The Clark County Commission will be discussing potential new regulations and approval criteria for data center construction in the area.

Just weeks after a developer asked state energy regulators to let it build its own temporary natural gas plant to power Northern Nevada data centers, another developer is asking regulators to approve an even larger, permanent gas plant to power additional data centers.

Together, Great Basin and Lake Mead face between $431 million and $501 million in deferred maintenance projects. Zooming out to include all the state's federally managed areas, including Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and part of Death Valley National Park, Nevada's federal lands have almost $1 billion in deferred maintenance repairs.

Dive team operations at Southern Nevada's Lake Mead National Recreation Area, consistently ranked as one of America's most deadly federal recreation sites, have quietly been suspended because of staffing shortages and unmet equipment and training needs. 

Mining developers say Nevada will have three operating lithium mines by 2030, despite cost increases from federal tariffs, the conflict in Iran and other federal initiatives that are challenging the industry.

City staff will work in the coming months to craft a proposal that encompasses suggestions from the public, outside groups council members and regional officials who have been studying the issue for more than a year.

As gray wolf populations expand in California and the broader region, some researchers say Nevada may be entering the earliest stages of the recovery story.

After seeking to collect a half billion dollars from customers to bolster its wildfire insurance, NV Energy has secured an additional $250 million in coverage. But Nevada's largest electric utility is still moving forward with its request to have ratepayers help foot the bill for a $500 million self-funded policy the utility can tap in the event its infrastructure causes a catastrophic blaze.

Six months after the state's highest water regulator had raised the nuclear option and proposed cutting water for Northern Nevada's Humboldt River Basin, the state now says it has no plans to issue a curtailment order. 

Seven states that have been negotiating for a longer-term solution to the dwindling water supply have constantly hit snags in the talks.

Consolidation. It's a convoluted issue that is seemingly everywhere. In this month's Indy Environment, I put a local push for firefighting consolidation into perspective.

In what experts say is a first for Nevada, a data center developer is asking permission from state energy regulators to operate a new temporary natural gas power plant because NV Energy doesn't have the capacity to immediately serve it — potentially skirting parts of the state's regulatory process.

Would firefighting in Washoe County be cheaper and more effective if its three different fire departments were combined? It reemerged in last year's legislative session when legislation passed requiring a study examining the possible merging of Sparks Fire Department, Reno Fire Department and Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District into one entity.