Friend Michael Dale sent along this article by Shaun McKinnon from the 4 October 2007 edition of the Arizona Republic.
He also included a comment - remember a while back when the Department of Interior lauded the Colorado River Basin states for learning to play together regarding Lakes Powell and Mead?
Yes, I do, and at the time figured it would last about as long as an ice sculpture during a Yuma summer day.
Hey, how about another 60,000-home subdivision outside Kingman?
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Arizona Fights Changes in Colorado River Plan
by Shaun McKinnon, Arizona Republic, 4 October 2007
Arizona balked Wednesday at proposed changes to a Colorado River drought plan and appealed to the federal government to settle the dispute or delay approval of the plan. In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and the other six states that take water from the Colorado River, Arizona officials said attempts to rewrite an agreement reached earlier this year put Arizona's share of the river at an unacceptable risk.
"We worked hard to try to put together this agreement, and the only thing Arizona asked is that it did not harm Arizona water users," said Herb Guenther, director of the state Department of Water Resources. At issue is whether a new system of managing reservoirs on the river would threaten the portion of Arizona's allotment that serves Phoenix and Tucson. Arizona argues that changes sought by states on the upper river could deprive Arizona of water even when storage levels in one reservoir were high.
The request for federal mediation could upset an already-tenuous peace among the seven states, which negotiated for more than two years over how to manage the river in times of drought. The states' version was undergoing a final review, and Kempthorne was expected to approve it in December. The federal government wanted the plan in place to avoid protracted legal battles if drought or shifting climate continued to shrink the river's flow. Growing demand for water among the nearly 30 million people who rely on the Colorado River has also increased tension.
Guenther said a delay could help the states produce a better operating plan and, in turn, ward off future lawsuits. "We think the whole process is moving too quickly," he said. "We're not giving enough time to seriously resolve this particular issue. It would be our feeling that it would not hurt to slow the process down a little and give the negotiations a chance to succeed."
Federal officials acknowledged the stalemate between Arizona and the other states but suggested further work within the current framework. "In light of the fact that in the last eight years the Colorado River has suffered through the worst drought in recorded history, it is extremely critical that we implement new guidelines for managing the Colorado River under low-water conditions this year," said Robert Johnson, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department's water agency. Johnson said the bureau had been working with the states for the past two months to resolve the differences and even delayed release of the final environmental-impact statement on the operating plan. He said he will meet with representatives from the states this week, however, time is short. "The basin is still in the grasp of this drought, and it is critically important that we resolve this issue now," Johnson added.
The other states hadn't seen Arizona's letter Wednesday and reacted cautiously.
"Utah's position is we're still talking among the basin states, and we are optimistic that an agreement can be reached that will not harm Arizona and that will be beneficial to all the basin states," said Dennis Strong, director of the Utah Division of Water Resources.
Arizona identified several concerns about the agreement in its letter, but the dispute hangs mostly on proposed changes to the way the states manage water in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the two largest storage reservoirs on the Colorado River.
Under the proposed drought plan, shortages are triggered by water levels in Lake Mead, which stores water for Arizona, Nevada and California. As the lake level declines, the size of the water shortages grows, which is why the three lower-river states have proposed ideas to increase storage. Arizona would feel the main brunt of any shortage because it gave up legal seniority to part of its allocation in exchange for the Central Arizona Project Canal, which delivers water to Phoenix and Tucson. The water in that canal is the first to be cut off in a shortage.
The agreement called for a system of balancing the water in Mead and Powell, which store water on behalf of the upper-basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico. Those states fear that if Powell drops too low, they could suffer shortages. Arizona argues that the upper-basin states tried to rewrite the formula for balancing water in the two reservoirs, producing rules that could create a shortage on Lake Mead even when ample water remained in Lake Powell.
"It's a scenario that may never develop," Guenther said. "But it could happen. And if it did, we don't feel it would be appropriate to short Arizona water users when there was water in Lake Powell."
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"It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it." -- J. Joubert.
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