[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 12/11/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

December 11, 2007

 

1.  Top Item

 

California tackles historic drought; States reach 'monumental agreement' on Colorado River water

San Diego Union Tribune – 12/11/07

By Michael Gardner, staff writer

 

SACRAMENTO – With scattered water rationing looming statewide, California has secured a virtual lock on its Colorado River supply and will be allowed more storage at Lake Mead, effectively creating a new reservoir without pouring an ounce of concrete.

 

The twin prizes were negotiated as part of a broad seven-state accord that will, for the first time, spell out how reductions would be imposed should a historic drought continue to plague the Colorado River basin.

 

“This is a monumental agreement on the Colorado River. It provides us with new tools and possibilities,” said Roger Patterson, assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

 

More than two years in the making, the accord charts how cuts will be imposed if Lake Mead continues to shrink. Arizona and Nevada must absorb losses in the first rounds, sparing California until an almost apocalyptic scenario.

 

California would not be a target until levels at Lake Mead plummet to just 16 percent capacity. The lake, behind Hoover Dam in Nevada, is 48 percent full after eight years of stingy snowfall.

 

Patterson said it's “highly unlikely” that lake levels would ever fall so precariously to warrant cuts here.

 

U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is expected to be in Las Vegas on Thursday to sign the agreement, considered by the negotiating parties as one of the most important since the signing of a 1922 compact that originally divided the river's bounty.

 

That's especially true for the three lower-basin states that rely on Lake Mead: Arizona, Nevada and California. The agreement also includes Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming.

 

Threats that the dry spell along the river – now stretching into its eighth year – will turn even worse drew the states together to determine how to cope with shortages.

 

There remains a few nagging disputes, mostly over dealings with Mexico and whether there is enough water for fish and wildlife.

 

The possibility of new storage facilities without the cost and environmental damage of new dams also could become part of an ongoing legislative debate over building more reservoirs in California.

 

The compromise protecting California's allotment of 4.4 million acre-feet has implications beyond the Colorado River. Southern California faces potential sharp delivery cuts from the north this year, and perhaps for some time to come, after a federal court ruling to protect an endangered fish in the Sacramento delta.

 

Metropolitan is California's largest urban user of Colorado River water, drawing between 550,000 and 700,000 acre-feet a year, which is then delivered to agencies that serve 18 million residents. The Imperial Irrigation District takes the most – about 3 million acre-feet annually – for mostly agricultural purposes. An acre-foot is about 325,000 gallons.

 

Significantly, the agreement will end a decades-old “use it or lose it” approach to water stored at Lake Mead. Previously, the trio of lower basin states were forced to abandon supplies left in the lake at the end of the year.

 

California, primarily Metropolitan, will be permitted to keep up to 400,000 acre-feet a year extra in Lake Mead – enough to meet the needs of 800,000 average households a year. However, with water supplies so low, Metropolitan is not expected to have any extra water to stash in 2008.

 

“This, for the first time, allows Metropolitan to bank unused water and have it stay in Lake Mead with Met's name on it,” Patterson said.

 

And that's potentially good news for the San Diego County Water Authority, which relies on Metropolitan for most of its supplies.

 

The authority has embarked on an ambitious quest for additional water, including working on a side agreement that would permit it to store an undetermined amount of water in Lake Mead.

 

Nevertheless, the compromise has drawn praise from various quarters.

 

“I don't see any downside,” said Gordon Hess, who tracks river issues for the San Diego authority. “It's good for all the states. It gives us certainty.”

 

That's exactly what the river-reliant states were after.

 

“We'll know when we'll have shortages, how much the shortages will be, and we'll be able to plan for them,” explained Thomas Carr, assistant director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

 

“It's not about who gave up what. We all benefit,” Carr said. “We avoid long, expensive, uncertain legal battles,” Carr said.

Also, California, after years of taking more than its share, agreed in 2003 to gradually reduce its take from the river to 4.4 million acre-feet.

 

Storage at Lake Mead is historically low, just 12.6 million acre-feet. Its capacity is 25.87 million acre feet. Officials say it will take at least a decade of more than ample snowfall across the West to refill the lake.

 

Nevertheless, the river system, which includes Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam and stretches from Wyoming to Nevada, is so vast that cuts to Arizona and Nevada will not be triggered until 2010 – at the earliest, officials say.

 

There is a missing ingredient: Mexico. Cross-border water talks were left to the U.S. State Department. Mexico receives an allocation and has protested some California moves as detrimental to its farmers.

 

Jennifer Pitt of Environmental Defense said she hopes the state department includes safeguarding water for the Colorado River Delta on both sides of the border.

 

The seven-state deal also offers the opportunity for some environmental supplies to be stored at Lake Mead, said Pitt, who had extensive dealings in the compact negotiations.

 

“If they hadn't left that door open,” she said, “there would be no hope for the Colorado River Delta in the long run.”  #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071211/news_1n11water.html

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