California renews Western water war

Friday, Nov. 26, 1999 | 11:04 a.m.

The oldest water war in the West rumbled into life this month, pitting California against six other states that share the Colorado River.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had ordered the Golden State more than a year ago to find a way to live within its annual 4.4 million-acre-foot share of the river.

Since Hoover Dam began regulating the river in 1935, California has enjoyed a water surplus through most of this century that allowed it to become a state that supplied food and housing to more than 25 million people. For many years California has been allowed to take up to 800,000 acre feet of extra water that could serve 40 million people or grow more rice, fruits and vegetables.

Nevada, Arizona, Utah and other upstream states contributed to California's surplus because none used their full shares of the river. Each year -- and most of the 1990s -- Interior secretaries have declared a surplus on the river and California slurped it up.

Long before Las Vegas and Phoenix, Tucson and southwestern Utah attracted affluent seniors and young families to retire and recreate, California needed a tame river to thrive, which is why the Colorado is the most regulated and litigated water supply in the nation.

As the Southwest grew, the Colorado's supply got leaner. So California farmers and ranchers came up with a plan in September to wean themselves off extra river runoff, but they wanted an extra 15 years to do it.

In effect, California would reap the surplus river water each year, while allowing Lake Mead in Southern Nevada and Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border to drop by as much as 120 feet. Marinas, docks and water supplies could sit high and dry two miles from the new lake levels.

After Nov. 15, when California irrigators made their plans public, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado cried foul. The West's biggest water war has started again.

Lower lake levels mean more polluted drinking water and less area for boaters, fishermen and swimmers to enjoy. Lakes Mead and Powell could sport white borders as levels lower, just like bathtub rings. Boaters and fishermen add more than $500 million to Utah's economy each year and more than that in Nevada from the two lakes.

Federal scientists have known for years that the Colorado River can change in a flash from a raging torrent to a trickle. The dams allow the Bureau of Reclamation to operate the river just like a bathtub.

In drought years or if Lake Mead's level drops to 1,125 feet, some industrial and agricultural users could lose their right to take river water. Urban areas would continue to be served, the bureau's Regional Director Robert Johnson has promised.

The river has about a four-year supply for all the states in case of an extended drought lasting more than eight years, Johnson said.

Federal scientists have also warned for decades that the Colorado River has been running higher and wider than it has in more ancient times.

So as Nevada, Arizona and Utah begin to use their full shares of the river, the western states are once again fighting over the available water.

California and the other western states fear that the federal government will step into the fray and dictate the river's uses. That is why it is so important for California to control its appetite for the Colorado's waters.

But the reaction from the other western states to California's current plan may signal a renewed western water war, federal and state officials said.