Officials from Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California gathered in San Diego last week to draft a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton indicating they had reached agreement on general principles about how the river should be managed during low-reservoir years. The Interior Department requested the input as it prepares to launch a study of future management strategies for the Colorado.

Utah water officials were quick to note Tuesday that there still is no consensus about specific issues. But it does represent a jump-start to a process that ground to a halt last spring when the upper basin states (Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico) and lower basin states (Nevada, Arizona and California) were unable to reach agreement about water releases from Lake Powell during the upcoming year. Norton eventually decided for them.

"Certainly this is a step that has to be taken if we're going to reach agreement on the big issues," said Don Ostler, executive director of the Salt Lake City-based Upper Colorado River Commission. "But I think everybody, in both basins, realize that there's still a long way to go."

Essentially, the Colorado River states have committed to:

l Coordinate operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead in an effort to balance the water levels in both reservoirs under drought conditions. Put another way, everybody would feel some pain.

l Improve the overall efficiency and management of the Colorado River system, whether planning capital projects or battling invasive species.

l Seek ways to augment the Colorado's water supply through processes like desalination and cloud seeding.

The seven states also have proposed that these efforts be undertaken during a 10-year "interim" period, a span in which all would agree not to evoke "law of the river issues" in order to assess how the new strategies are working.

"If we're successful, it will probably eliminate a lot of the legal issues that we could be facing. The level of contention will certainly be reduced," said Larry Anderson, director of the Utah Division of Water Resources. "If we can't get it done, then the secretary will have to develop her own proposal, which could lead to legal action being taken by a basin state, which in turn could draw everybody into the fight. We don't want that to happen."

The upper and lower basin states were at such loggerheads in May that Norton settled the dispute by ordering the normal release of 8.23 million acre-feet to the lower basin. The upper basin states wanted more water held back because of Powell's drought-depleted water levels.

Numerous disagreements remain. Right near the top: a thorny argument over whether Nevada and Arizona can tap in-state tributaries that flow into the Colorado. Upper basin states have long protested Arizona's self-proclaimed right to Gila River water; now they are protesting a proposal by Nevada - which has nearly maxed out its Colorado River allotment - to tap the Virgin River.

"There's going to have to be a lot of give and take," said Anderson. "If it's all take, it won't work."

jbaird@sltrib.com