Six environmental groups protest water release plan

Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2000 | 12:01 p.m.

A Bureau of Reclamation plan to release water stored in Lake Mead for use in California, Arizona and Nevada has raised the ire of six environmental groups.

The bureau proposes that the Colorado River be declared in a surplus condition next year, despite below normal river flow and lake levels for this year.

Such a declaration would allow the bureau to release water through Hoover Dam, regardless of actual river conditions, for use in the three states in the river's lower basin.

The environmental groups contend that below-normal water levels easily could remain below average next year.

In an Oct. 27 letter to the bureau, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense, the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, the Sierra Club and Southwest Rivers argue that declaring a surplus where none exists would give the demands created by farms and cities a higher priority than the environment.

In years when Lake Mead is full, excess water can flow to Mexico's Colorado River Delta, an ailing wetlands in need of extra water.

The interstate compact governing the operation of the dams on the river gives the interior secretary nearly absolute discretion to declare a surplus even in years of drought.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, is reviewing administrative rules that would formalize the declaration of surpluses for 15 years. The move would create an interim grace period for California to use surplus water as it reduces its historic overuse of the river.

The environmental groups long have been concerned with the health of the delta, a vast wetlands in Mexico where the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of California.

Diversion of water to farms and cities upstream have destroyed 95 percent of the wetlands and imperiled the Vaquita porpoise, the Totoaba fish and the Southwestern willow flycatcher, an endangered bird, the groups said.