Congratulations to Don Ament for receiving the Colorado Water Congress' 2008 Aspinall Water Leader of the Year Award today. Mr. Ament has had a long and distinguished career in service to the citizens of Colorado, especially the farmers. After a career in the Colorado General Assembly he was Governor Owens' pick to lead the Department of Agriculture in 1998.
The first speaker at Friday's General Session was Thomas F. Donnelly, Executive Vice President of the National Water Resources Association. His topic was Water Issues in the U.S. Congress and the 76th Year of the National Water Resources Association.
His organization, after a prioritization process that includes the issues raised by members, plans to work on several issues during the 110th Congress. He named federal funding for water projects, modernization of existing infrastructure, modifications of the Clean Water Act along with education of the Congress and administration on the issue of planning for climate change.
Donnelly talked about the battle over last year's Water Resources Development Act. The act was in a long line of core authorization bills but since there had not been one passed since 2000 the size of the bill put a target on it. Readers may remember that the president's veto was overridden by Congress late in 2007.
Federal funding is tough to get and Mr. Donnelly says, "As long as there is a struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economy is struggling," funding will continue to be in short supply. He added that he expects, "funding to be very much greatly reduced," when the president introduces his budget later this year. "This does not bode well for Animas-La Plata," he said.
Funding needs for the West's aging infrastructure is a neglected area in current federal policy, he remarked. Many projects, although they are still performing well, have "exceeded their design life," he said, adding, "some need major repairs." The NWRA is working on determining the scope of the needs. Mr. Donnelly identified three categories of projects: Projects with available funds, usually multi-purpose, providing electrical power and municipal water in addition to irrigation and flood control; Projects with no chance of paying back repair costs since they may have been heavily subsidized in the first place (primarily Reclamation irrigation projects); Projects that can pay back the costs over time (i.e Minidoka in Idaho) but where there is no current mechanism to allow for loans and delayed payment.
The national issue that keeps Mr. Donnelly up at night is the Oberstar-Feingold bill (Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007) currently winding it's way through Congress. While it may not pass the 110th Congress the current long-term outlook for this year's election is that the Democratic party may add significantly to their majority, and set the stage for passage in the 111th, he said. His position is that the bill will, "expand the scope of federal control and undermine states rights." The bill, according to Donnelly, "Removes the nexus between navigable and jurisdictional waters," and will encompass any land that, "was wet, is wet or will be wet in the future."
With respect to climate change Mr. Donnelly said, "Something is going on, we don't know exactly what, or what is causing it," but he and the NWRA are educating the Congress and administration to develop a, "No regrets strategy." He went on to say that after 1994 the Congress, when moderate Democrats were largely purged from both chambers, and the, "ideological center was ripped out of Congress," it's almost impossible for them to function. There is now a, "distinct lack of comity and decency," he said.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
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