States urged to find water solutions

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

Federal officials put the Colorado River basin states on notice today that they will have to find a way to relieve the river system threatened by years of drought and growing demand, or the states will face the possibility of a plan imposed by Washington, D.C.

Those threats to the river dominated discussions at the annual conference of the Colorado River Water Users Association Thursday, which brought together representatives of the seven river basin states, including Nevada, and federal Interior Department officials. The conference will continue today as hundreds of delegates discuss the looming possibility of cuts to water allocations.

The Interior Department, which serves as river master for the lower basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona, also will lay down a deadline for all seven states to come up with a common resolution of how many cuts would be imposed. If the states, which have been negotiating since March on the proposed cuts, do not find a resolution by April, the Interior Department could impose one, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Steve Griles warned at the conference today.

"We're continuing to watch the drought very closely and to encourage the states to design management strategies if the drought continues, " Griles said.

He said the Interior Department has waited for shortage guidelines from the states.

"To date the states have not produced such a plan, " Griles said. "Time is of the essence."

Griles said Interior Secretary Gail Norton needs the recommendations in place this spring to combine with information on winter snow pack to determine releases from Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Without the guidelines from the basin states, the department "will have to develop guidelines without the recommendations," Griles said.

Kay Brothers, deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, has been involved with interstate negotiations on how to implement shortages since last March. She said the deadline was new.

"They've wanted us to get it done but they've never given us a deadline," she said.

Brothers said that meeting the April deadline could be difficult.

"It is a pretty short time frame for the number of issues that have to be discussed."

This afternoon, representatives of the seven states were meeting in an effort to find common ground and draft a criteria for the shortage.

The deadline contributes to one of a gloomy picture of the river and the state of river law: more than five years of drought will likely mean a federal cut in allocations from the river, while simmering disputes over inequalities of priority for those allocations could erupt into legal and political warfare.

Those attending the conference, however, also seemed united in their belief -- or at least hope -- that the metaphorical combat can be avoided. They cited water agreements within the past several years that kept peace on the river, including the adoption of Interim Surplus Guidelines adopted in 2003 that would have divided up the now-extinct water surpluses on the Colorado and the agreement that won approval Thursday for Southern Nevada to buy 1.25 million acre-feet of water, more than 400 billion gallons, from Arizona for $330 million in the coming decades.

"I had the great honor today to give the order to the Arizona navy to stand down," Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, joked to the crowd of hundreds of water agency professionals.

Guenther may need to keep his powder dry for his state's competition with California. Arizona and Nevada are applying pressure to rewrite rules that now put California -- specifically Imperial Valley farmers -- on top of the list of the three lower basin Colorado River states for priority access to the river water.

That means that if there is a cut because of the drought, Arizona will feel the hurt first and hardest and, Central Arizona Project Director George Renner said, potentially alone. Renner's agency brings Colorado River water to his state's fast growing desert cities, including Phoenix.

A 1964 Supreme Court decision and 1968 congressional approval of the CAP aqueduct put Arizona dead last in priority among those who receive water from the river. Arizona's basic allocation is 2.8 million acre-feet annually. Next to last stands Nevada, which receives the smallest allocation of 300,000 acre-feet annually. California, on top of the priority list, takes 4.4 million acre-feet.

Mexico, downstream, also receives at least 1.5 million acre-feet under international treaty.

Renner said that any cut to allocations to the lower basin states would likely be less than 1 million acre-feet, so the possibility exists for his state to take the cuts alone.

"We come to the table with a chip on our shoulder and that chip says 'shortage,' " he said.

Renner said it is time for the United States government to consider ways to reduce that flow to Mexico, at least as long as the drought threatens water supplies.

Griles said Mexico also will have to take less water if there are shortage-induced cutbacks.

Renner said that Arizona would like to see smaller cuts spread out over time than bigger cuts down the road.

That would make the potential hit to Arizona closer to 100,000 acre-feet, about enough water for 750,000 people, rather than 600,000 acre-feet.

"That's easier to manage," Renner said.

Dennis Underwood, vice president of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the 1968 legislation is in place, and Arizona and Nevada must learn to work within the existing law to keep water flowing to homes and businesses.

"We should not be arguing about priorities," Underwood said. "We should be doing the work we know has to be done."

That work includes forging agreements such as the Nevada-Arizona pact to find ways to get through the drought, he said.

California, Underwood told the water agency professionals, did not complain when the other basin states and the federal government required the state to live within its basic allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet. The comment prompted hoots of laughter from the audience at the conference.

While "there is not a user of the river who does not believe there are inequities... a deal is a deal. We have to live up to it."

Arizona is not alone when it comes to concerns about the sharing of the river's resource and potential cuts. The four upper basin states have a legal obligation to keep sending 9 million acre-feet down river every year, even if it means reservoirs such as Lake Powell dry up.

It is an unpleasant prospect to Keith Denos, a representatives of the Provo River Water Users Association in Pleasant Grove, Utah. His agency delivers about 25,000 acre-feet annually from the Colorado River to augment supplies for 1 million customers along the Wasatch Mountain range.

"We believe that any shortages ought to be faced by everyone," he said. "Don't leave us high and dry."

Touching on themes expressed by many of the agency representatives, Denos said negotiation and compromise were keys to avoiding conflict.

"Nobody wants to go to court. That just opens up the door for too many other things to happen," he said. The existing Colorado River compact may not be perfect, but it gives states a say in the future of the river use.

"We have a little bit of control."

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the agency that brings Clark County's 1.6 million residents water from the Colorado River, agreed.

"None of us want to go to court. There will be no winner," she warned. If legal and political battles begin, "every resident of every basin state will say we've failed."

The Colorado River Compact, the legal guide to river use first forged in 1929, can still work if the states cooperate and are flexible in their approach to solutions, Mulroy said.

"The compact can survive. It can come up as a model for other places around the world, but it depends on us."

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