In an era when the federal government is tightening its purse strings and Lake Mead is still declining, a new study is highlighting where federal dollars go the furthest in saving water in the waning Colorado River system.

The study , released last month in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, analyzed 462 projects from 2004 to 2024 in which the federal government invested a total of $1.08 billion in conservation.

“We want the dollars to deliver us the maximum water savings,” said Mehdi Nemati, a study author and assistant professor of environmental economics and policy at the University of California, Riverside. “This should be a little bit of a guide as to where we can save water with the lowest amount of money.”

Since Republican President Donald Trump took office

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