The U.S. Interior Department’s decision to maintain the current rate of water released from Lake Powell could spell future problems for Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Most troubling, Interior Secretary Gale Norton didn’t strongly signal seven states that share the Colorado River about the need for long-term drought plans.
Norton said she won’t reduce the amount of water released from Lake Powell for the rest of 2005. Snowmelt projections in the upper Colorado River indicate that by year’s end, Lake Powell should fill to 48 percent of capacity. That’s better than the 34 percent of normal the lake had this spring. Even so, Powell likely will end the year behind Lake Mead, which could reach 57 percent of normal, thanks to an unusually wet year in the lower river basin.
Norton’s decision not to take steps to refill Powell rests largely on the assumption that another year of near-normal moisture will bless the West in 2006. If that turns out to be wrong, her decision could spell trouble. We wish she had chosen the more prudent course.
Lake Powell is the region’s insurance against economic disruption and political conflict during droughts. The states upstream on the Colorado River (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) are legally obligated to deliver a certain amount of water to three lower basin states (California, Nevada and Arizona). When Powell is nearly full, Interior can open the spigots to send water downstream to meet the lower basin’s needs, without requiring water use cutbacks in upstream states. If Powell gets too low, there’s no easy way to deal with drought.
Norton missed a chance to pressure all seven states develop long-term plans to share the pain of prolonged droughts. Norton would have gotten everyone’s attention if she had curbed Powell’s water releases even by a few thousand acre-feet.
She was hamstrung, though, by the unwillingness of upstream states to agree on how much she should reduce the water releases. Colorado officials had hoped that Norton would ensure that Powell would be able to refill to nearly pre-drought levels, but the Interior chief ruled the other way.
Norton did side with Colorado and the other upper basin states on another issue, rejecting claims by the downstream states that Interior lacks authority to manage water releases from Lake Powell, which is a federal facility.
Interior deserves credit for taking on the tough task of making all seven states live within limits established in the 1922 Colorado River Interstate Compact. She wants the Colorado River Management Work Group to reconvene by May 31 to discuss unresolved issues. Given the uncertainties of a court battle and the possibility that the feds could impose an unreasonable drought plan on the West, the seven states have reason to bargain in good faith.
