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Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin how their communities will hold together if water and other resources are diverted from local control to being controlled by the political and economic might of urban centers. Virtually all resource managers in the Basin are aware of the need for hunkering-down strategies to cope with short dry spells, such as 1996. The Basin's most notable example of hunkering down occurred when residents of Colorado and New Mexico successfully escaped the full consequences of their states' long failure to meet their Compact obligations. When several wet years in the early 1980s caused water to "spill" at Elephant Butte, provisions in the Compact erased the remaining obligations from the books. Some .water users, though not all by any means, have benefited from federal programs that forgave repayment obligations when they were unable to meet them without extreme financial hardship. ;: < Given the past successes, one must expect that future growth in demand for the Basin's resources will be met with similar response strategies, at least to some extent. Indeed, one does not have to look far to see them in action today. EI Paso looks to the Environmental Protection Agency for money to construct pipelines to extract water from the river far upriver, land developers continue to build houses and malls without having to demonstrate how their occupants' demands for water will be met, and many conventional water users hope that Congress somehow will make demands for greater instream flows disappear by repealing the Endangered Species Act. ~; (i ,~, i.\ We anticipate, however, that the conventional strategies will be far less successful in the future than in the past and that pressures for cooperative resource management will expand markedly. There are several reasons for this conclusion. Among the most prominent are these: ,-; ~~. The Competition for Resources Will Accelerate. Additional competition will come from all corners. Perhaps most important is the expectation that population growth and rising incomes in the Basin will increase the demand for municipal-industrial water and for clean water and other readily accessible amenities. Pueblos are likely to press their demands for water that meets their quality standards. The Ecosystem Will be Less Forgiving. The aquifers underlying the major urban areas will not sustain current pumping levels for long without apparent effect. The current findings from research on the Middle Rio ('~.11~'3 "". ''t. 'j I. \-' ~ ..... '. v , " ~ 122