“Whiskey is for drinking and
water is for fighting.”
This item is available in full to subscribers.
To continue reading, you will need to either log in to your subscriber account, below, or purchase a new subscription.
Please log in to continue |
Hello Sublette County, I am sure you have
heard the phrase, “Whiskey is for drinking and
water is for fighting.”
During the month of June, I attended two
conferences dealing with water shortages in
the Colorado River and its tributaries. One
conference was hosted in Boulder, Colo., at
the University of Colorado’s Law School and
the other was in Salt Lake City at Utah’s Department
of Natural Resources. The Colorado
River Basin has experienced persistently dry
hydrology since the turn of the 21st Century
while many of the metropolitan areas that
utilize the basin’s water have seen incredible
growth. Denver, Salt Lake, Phoenix and Las
Vegas are some of the fastest growing cities
in the nation.
How we balance this exponential population
growth with a shrinking water resource,
the Colorado River, will be one of the great
challenges of the next 50 years. Historically,
agriculture has controlled the vast majority
of water rights on the Colorado River. However,
in many areas that are seeing increased
demand for municipal and industrial uses of
water, agricultural users of water are under increased
pressure to either sell water or curtail
use. This is not just a fight between agriculture,
municipalities and industrial water users, but is
also a fight between the Upper Basin states ¬
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and a
small piece of Arizona – and the Lower Basin
states – Nevada, the bulk of Arizona and California.
The Colorado River and its tributaries
provide water for about 40 million people and
more than 5.5 million acres of farmland from
Wyoming to California.
History
The fight over Colorado River water has
been going on longer than 100 years. In fact,
in 1919 the rapidly expanding use of Colorado
River water in California was viewed with increasing
alarm by officials in the four Upper
Basin states. As a consequence, the League
of the Southwest was formed in 1919 to promote
the orderly development and equitable
division of Colorado River water. Congress
approved the Kincaid Act in 1920, which directed
the Secretary of the Interior to make a
full and comprehensive study and to report
on the possible diversion and use of Colorado
River water.
As a result of negotiations among the seven
Basin States, it was agreed that an interstate
compact would establish an equitable apportionment
of the waters and protect the Upper
Basin states. Each of the seven Basin states
adopted the authorizing legislation in 1921
and Congress consented to the negotiations by
legislation enacted on Aug. 19, 1921. The Colorado
River Commission convened in January
1922. After 27 meetings, a final agreement on
the Compact was signed in Santa Fe, N.M., on
Nov. 24, 1922. By 1944, the state legislatures
of all seven Basin states had ratified the compact.
This final agreement also included language
that the Upper and Lower Basin states
would equally share any water shortage resulting
from treaty obligations to Mexico.
So, why are we still fighting 100 years
later? After all, we have a virtually watertight
agreement between all of the states and the
federal government. The answer is that poor
assumptions were made regarding projected
flows of the Colorado River. These early studies
occurred during a wet cycle, which we now
understand better due to tree ring studies. For
the two decades proceeding 1922, the Colorado
River had produced an average flow that
would have accommodated 16-million acrefeet
per year in consumptive use of water annually
for the two basins. However, the Upper
Basin by virtue of the compact assumed the
burden of drier cycles. Hence the Lower Basin
has received a guaranteed 10-year cumulative
minimum flow of 75-million acre-feet at Lee’s
Ferry, located just below Lake Powell. The
Upper Basin became a guarantor in the sense
that its depletions may not reduce the 10-year
aggregate flow below the 75-million acre-feet
at the Lee Ferry compact point.
Drought years
Modern tree ring studies have revealed that
the three decades prior to 1922 were likely the
wettest in the past 500 to 1,200 years and that
the natural longterm annual flow past Lee’s
Ferry would accommodate only 13.5-million
acre-feet of consumptive use. The Lower Basin
and Mexico are estimated to utilize between
1.2-million to 1.5-million acre-feet of water
per year more than the river flows on average
in today’s drier conditions. Hence, the Lower
Basin states have a recognized structural deficit
and consequently, to meet demands, the
basin’s reservoirs have been drawn down by
about 30-million acre-feet. If drought conditions
continue, Lake Powell could drop below
the elevation necessary to produce power. So,
the Lower Basin states are utilizing more water
than they are allocated, and drier conditions
threaten the Upper Basin states’ ability to provide
the required amount of water below Lake
Powell.
If the Upper Basin states cannot provide
75-million acre-feet of water for the previous
10-year period, then compact requirements are
tripped that would require a curtailment of use
in the Upper Basin. All post-1922 water rights
could be subject to curtailment. Curtailment
will have a greater impact on municipalities
and industrial users than agricultural users,
because agriculture has most of the pre-1922
water rights. However, agriculture will be
heavily impacted as well.
Drought strategies
In May 2005, the Secretary of the Interior
directed the Department of Reclamation to
develop additional strategies for improving
management of the reservoirs of the Colorado
River system. In response, Reclamation initiated
a public process to develop and adopt interim
operational guidelines that can be used
to address the operations of Lake Powell and
Lake Mead during drought and low reservoir
conditions. These interim guidelines are in effect
until 2026. About 2014, the major water
suppliers in the Lower Basin entered into a
Pilot Drought Response memorandum of understanding
with the Department of the Interior.
Many of these same parties joined with
Denver Water in the Upper Basin to implement
a conservation pilot program designed to fund
water conservation. Some ranchers in Sublette
County have utilized this program, which paid
them to turn off their water after a set date and
then not put water back on their fields until the
next spring. This program was somewhat contentious
among irrigators in Sublette County,
with supporters and detractors.
Beginning in 2014, the Upper and Lower
Basin states began working on a drought
contingency plan to address shortages. The
seven Colorado River Basin states, in partnership
with the Department of Interior, recently
signed the Colorado River Drought Contingency
Plan. One part of particular importance
to the Upper Basin states of Colorado, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming is the Demand
Management Storage Agreement. The DMSA
authorizes the Bureau of Reclamation to make
available to the states unfilled storage capacity
at the initial units of the Colorado River Storage
Project Act – Powell, Navajo, the Aspinall
Unit and Flaming Gorge. The DMSA neither
establishes nor mandates the development of a
demand management program. Storage would
become available only if the states were able
to design and implement a DM program in the
Upper Basin. If the states do establish a DM
program, the agreement allows for storage of
up to 500,000 acre-feet of water conserved in
the Upper Colorado River Basin, which will
help assure compliance with the 1922 Colorado
River Compact.
According to the Wyoming State Engineer’s
Office, the states are working to identify
priority issues that will need to be developed
to inform a thorough evaluation regarding
the feasibility of a demand management program.
A critical component of that evaluation
is engagement with water users and other interested
parties of the Green and Little Snake
river basins of Wyoming. Beginning later this
summer, we will begin focused discussions on
demand management throughout the respective
basins in Wyoming.
Conferences
The conferences that I have attended are
helping me become more educated on Colorado
River issues and it is imperative that all
water users in the Green River Basin, which
is everyone, become engaged in the discussions
around a demand management program.
I remain unconvinced that Wyoming should
participate in a demand management program,
since we are not utilizing the 14 percent share
of water we were allocated in the 1948 Upper
Colorado River Basin Compact.
However, I am keeping an open mind, because
I worry about the old adage that Dan
Budd often repeated: “Water flows to money.”
I worry about drying up agriculture to wet
the whistle of Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix
and Las Vegas. Everyone who likes to fish,
feed hay or drink water in the Green River
Valley had better pay attention.