Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, addressed the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Association on Friday, according to the Rocky Mountain News [December 17, 2005, "Norton: Colorado River plan needed"].
From the article, "Western states, stuck in a stalemate over how to manage the Colorado River during droughts, are jeopardizing the legal peace that's prevailed on the river during much of the past two decades, federal water officials said Friday...
"...dozens of other groups have submitted drought proposals, the states remain deadlocked on a number of key issues, including how lakes Powell and Mead should be managed and who will bear the brunt of any shortages that may occur. Norton, in a videotaped message to hundreds of Western water officials at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association Friday, urged the states to work harder."
Here's another report about the CRWUA meeting from the Free NewMexican. They write, "The annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference brought experts together as officials from the seven states that drink from the river are facing a deadline for proposing a plan to manage the river through an ongoing drought. Norton's department started a process for developing a new water shortage plan and aims to have procedures in place by December 2007. The department is pressuring the states to submit their proposal by early February. Under a 1922 compact the states are each allotted a portion of the 15 million acre-feet of water assumed to be in the system. The debate pits the lower basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona against the upper basin states - Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona. The upper basin states, for example, have pushed to reduce upstream releases to help refill Lake Powell, which has been drained to about 49 percent capacity. But the lower basin states say such a plan would jeopardize Lake Mead and downstream users."
The Arizona Republic weighs in on the CRWUA meetings this week. From the article, "Among the issues still to be settled, according to officials from the states: Colorado and the other upper river states want to explore alternatives that would free up needed water in the lower river by paying farmers there to stop growing some crops and leave their river allocations for urban users. Such a plan would cost millions of dollars, but the federal government is preparing a pilot program; Arizona and Nevada would like to see an emphasis on augmenting the river's flow, by seeding clouds over the Colorado mountains, perhaps, or starting up a desalting plant at Yuma to capture lost agricultural runoff. The lower river states also want more conservation and efficiency measures. Those ideas have not won the full support of the four upper basin states and may not be within the scope of the government's immediate plans; The states disagree on how Mexico would figure into river shortages. Mexico is entitled to 1.5 million acre-feet a year under a U.S. treaty. Any changes would have to be handled through the treaty."
Here's an article about this week's meetings from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. They write, "But the process for dealing with shortage-sharing on the river will encompass issues outside of operating Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the system's two main reservoirs, with drought in mind...Some of the 'additional opportunities' for discussion haven't been well-received by Colorado's negotiation delegation. In a recent letter from Arizona water officials to the Department of the Interior, a request was made for the department to not consider hydropower production as a necessary purpose of the Colorado River... If Lake Powell empties to the point where it can no longer create hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam, Kuharich said, the revenues from the sale of that power would no longer be available for salinity control, endangered species or other hydropower-funded projects for the Colorado River. Another alternative currently on the negotiating table, Kuharich said, was the question of tributary use in the Lower Basin states of California, Nevada and Arizona. Pat Mulroy, Nevada's representative to the negotiations, has suggested diverting water from the Virgin and Muddy rivers east of Las Vegas to the city, but both rivers are tributaries to the Colorado River. Colorado and the other Upper Basin states of Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah argue those rivers, and others like them in the Lower Basin, should be considered as part of the Colorado River under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the document that divides the river's water between the Upper Basin states and the Lower Basin states. Upper Basin states contend Lower Basin states are using the tributary water illegally when Upper Basin tributaries, such as the Gunnison River, are already calculated in Colorado River Compact deliveries."
Category: Colorado Water
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