Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Water to Lake Mead won’t be reduced

Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced that the federal government will not reduce the amount of water to be released from Lake Powell to Lake Mead through the remainder of this "water year," which ends Sept. 30.

The decision means that Lake Mead, the source of 90 percent of Southern Nevada's drinking water, will not shrink faster than it would have if the four states of the upper Colorado River basin had been successful in their efforts to cut the Lake Powell releases. Those states -- Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming -- had urged the department to cut the releases by an unspecified amount in an effort to prop up supplies in the northern lake.

In her decision, Norton cited improved drought conditions and increased runoff. Federal forecasts indicate that runoff this year to the Colorado River will be about 6 percent more than average. However, Norton said the decision does not mean that more than five years of drought along the Colorado River basin, upper and lower, are over.

She said that next year, a similar mid-year review to determine if more or less water should be released from Powell will occur. The decision Monday was the first time the Interior Department has made such a mid-year review of water supplies along the Colorado River. The river's annual operating plan usually is produced before the end of the calendar year and covers Oct. 1 throuogh Sept. 30.

"We remain concerned about drought in the basin and therefore will propose a mid-year review in the 2006 Colorado River annual operating plan if conditions warrant," Norton said in a prepared statement. "We need to continue close monitoring of reservoir levels and releases in the 2006 water year."

Norton had asked for the seven states of the Colorado River to come up with a consensus recommendation on how much water to send from Powell to Mead, but deep divisions between the upper basin states and the lower basin states of Nevada, California and Arizona scuttled the effort to produce a consensus.

The lower basin states wanted no change in the total of 8.23 million acre-feet of water that the operating plan provided.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said the decision was a good one because it avoided igniting further legal or political skirmishes along the river.

"This is a balanced decision," Mulroy said Monday following Norton's announcement. "The important thing to take away from what she did is that it kept everyone at the table. She didn't do anything radical that would cause anyone to bolt from the table."

Norton has asked the basin states to continue working together to find ways to better balance the in and outflows of both Powell and Mead, as well as design recommendations for cuts to users if water supplies in the river continue to dwindle.

Dennis Underwood, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the decision was not necessarily a victory for the three lower basin states, although the decision matched the arguments those states made.

"This was an operational decision," he said, adding that water deliveries to the lower basin, at least in the near term, would not have been affected if Norton had reduced the water release. "There are always going to be differences of opinion ... but that's why you have a water master."

The focus now should be on coordinating the operations of Powell and Mead, he said.

"We've never had to look at if there is a better way to operate," Underwood said. "We're in virgin territory. We've never been here in terms of storage. We've never been here in terms of five years of drought."

While Underwood and Mulroy said Norton's decision was not a victory for the lower basin over the upper basin states, the spokesman for Colorado's major river management agency said the decision came as a sharp disappointment.

"We were disappointed," said Chris Treese, spokesman for the Colorado River Water Conservation District, which manages water policies for the western half of Colorado. "We thought the water year had given the secretary an opportunity to differentiate between the lower and upper basin."

The relatively wet year had benefited the lower basin much more than the upper basin, Treese said. "The upper basin continues to suffer in this drought. This was a good time to prepare for the possibility that the drought would continue."

Reducing releases from Powell at the Glen Canyon Dam in Page, Ariz., would have helped both the upper and lower basin preserve its water supplies, hydroelectric generating capacity and recreational resources, he said.

Treese said it would be unlikely for his agency to battle Norton's decision, a move that could take the agencies into court. He said no action of that kind was anticipated.

"We will continue to work with the secretary and the other basin states," he said.

Mulroy said the ongoing discussions on the fate of the river's resource would include many variables that could lead to more flexibility in releases in the future. The alternative, of a collapse in the dialogues, would be very bad for the entire West, she added.

"There will be a lot of other variables that would affect how much water comes from Powell to Lake Mead," she said. "If it craters, then we will all be in court. If we end up in court, then Nevada had better be prepared for a long period of time to be self-sufficient ... We will be at each other's throat.

"If the process does fall apart, then Nevada will have to come out with guns blazing."

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