[env-trinity] Colorado River Pact

[Patrick Truman]

      States OK new deal on Colorado River water
      New York Times

      Monday, December 10, 2007

      Facing the worst drought in a century and the prospect that climate change could produce long-term changes on the Colorado River, the lifeline for several Western states, federal officials have reached a new pact with the states on how to allocate water if the river runs short.

      State and federal officials praised the agreement, which Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne was expected to sign Thursday, as a landmark akin to the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that first divvied up how much water the seven states served by the river - California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming - receive annually.

      The new accord, outlined by federal officials in a telephone news conference Friday, spells out how three down-river states, California, Arizona and Nevada, will share the pain of water shortages. It puts in place new measures to encourage conservation and manage the two primary reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which have gone from nearly full to about half empty since 1999.

      The accord is expected to forestall likely litigation as fast-growing states jockey for the best way to keep the water flowing to their residents and businesses in increasingly dry times. It would be in effect through 2026 and could be revised during that time.

      Some environmental groups said the pact did not go far enough to encourage conservation and discourage growth. But federal officials said they took the best of several proposals by the states, environmental organizations and others and emphasized the importance of all seven states agreeing with the result.

      The pact, the product of 2 1/2 years of negotiation and study, establishes criteria for the Interior Department to declare a shortage on the river, which would occur when the system is unable to produce the 7.5 million acre-feet of water, enough to supply 15 million homes for a year, that the three down-river states are entitled to.

      Water deliveries would be decreased based on how far water levels drop in Lake Mead and Lake Powell. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river system, predicts about a 5 percent chance of such a shortage being declared by 2010, but it all depends on how much the states are able to conserve and, of course, the weather.

     
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