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Colorado River water has always been recognized as the lifeblood of the Southwest. Now, it has its own blood bank.
After years of study and discussion, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation this week announced a proposal for managing the river and its two largest reservoirs - Lake Powell and Lake Mead - during droughts.
The plan, which still faces several months of final review, is extraordinary for several reasons.
Not only is it unusual that the agency is approaching management of Colorado River water based on the notion that there might be less water to divide, but also because environmental groups - as opposed to just water district officials - played a significant role in shaping the proposal from the start.
"The drought has caused everyone to stretch and do some things that were not heretofore possible," said Don Ostler, the Salt Lake City-based director of the Upper Colorado Commission, which represents Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico in river management issues.
He pointed out that the idea for a drought-oriented focus on the Colorado began in 2000, when water shortages were severe. Although there is growing agreement that the Colorado River experiences longer and more severe droughts than previously thought, earlier management plans emphasized mainly the availability of water.
The Bureau of Reclamation decided the best way to work through the issues was through an environmental impact statement process, which included public meetings and a thorough review of five different drought-management proposals. The preferred plan can be viewed at http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/strategies/documents.html.
One was suggested by the seven Colorado River Basin states, which rely on the Colorado to provide water to more than 30 million people in the nation's driest corner.
Their proposal was to begin rationing water in the three lower basin states - California, Arizona and Nevada - when Lake Mead's water dropped to certain levels. The lower the level, the more cutbacks.
The idea, which includes juggling the levels of Lake Powell as well, is to conserve the available water. And the lower basin states would get "credits" that could be used in high-water times.
"It has a conservation provision for the lower basin states," said Ostler, pointing to a key element of the plan.
In addition, water years when supplies were better than expected would be banked. That "surplus" water would amount to between 2.1 million and 4.2 million acre feet. An acre foot is the amount of water a household of four consumes in a year.
The seven-state proposal called for 2.1 million acre feet, but environmental groups, in the proposal they prepared for the environmental review, suggested the higher amount.
While some details remain to be worked out for the final version of the plan in the fall, both the water managers and environmental groups are pleased with how things look so far.
Jennifer Pitt, a senior resource analyst for the advocacy group Environmental Defense, said the banked water will provide more flexibility and make it possible for Mexican water users to manage some of their water share for environmental purposes in the delta.
The drought plan also is an advance for environmentalists who have long argued for a more conservative approach to managing the Colorado. In the end, Pitt said, the environmentalists were pleased to have a positive effect on the plan.
"We have worked long and hard to prove we can play this kind of role," she said.
Robert V. King, chief of the Utah Division of Water Resources' interstate streams section, said the states worked for three years to develop the proposal the Bureau of Reclamation has selected. It sets out a method of managing the water that is likely to work in most drought situations and helps the systems work more efficiently.
"No one state got their way," he said. "It was a compromise."
The Colorado River proposal requires:
* Coordination of Lake Powell and Lake Mead water levels.
* Water cuts to lower Colorado River Basin states when Lake Mead is low.
* Additional water conservation programs in lower basin states.
* Provisions addressing potential needs of Mexico's water users.
Source: U.S. Bureau of reclamation The Salt Lake Tribune