WSP09398

• File Number: 8507
• Description: Rio Grande Project
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Date: 7/1/1997
• Title: Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin part 3
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

Conclusions and Recommendations

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Although we express this recommendation (and the others) in terms of tasks
to be taken soon, we anticipate that each will require on-going effort for the
foreseeable future. It will not be enough to assess ecosystem conditions once
and then forget about them, especially in the face of potentially significant
ecosystem change in some locations, rapid population growth, and changing
economic values. Thus, we recommend that the federal agencies identified
above permanently assume primary responsibility for improving
understanding of the Basin's ecosystem, its economy, and the relationships
between them.

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3. Describe Significant Tradeoffs More Clearly and Set Priorities

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We anticipate that federal resource-management policy will have two
primary thrusts, one ecological and one economic.' The ecological goal will
aim to prevent ecological degradation and to restore biological diversity and
ecological integrity insofar as it is politically, economically, and ecologically
feasible to do so. The economic goal will seek to increase the value of
resource-related goods and services, standards of living, and perceptions of
fairness. Federal managers will not have unlimited budgets for pursuing
these goals, however, and will have to concentrate on activities most likely to
have meaningful impact within the context of the ecosystem-management
approach outlined above. Accordingly, we recommend that the agencies
identified in the preceding section describe the ecological and economic
tradeoffs associated with different activities more clearly and set priorities.

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Why is this recommendation appropriate? Examining tradeoffs and setting
priorities is especially important for federal agencies in this Basin, where
resource-management long has been equivalent to developing water for
consumptive use, consumptive demands, alone, far exceed supplies, and any
federal action is viewed with suspicion. The importance will mount iffederal
agencies move in the direction of ecosystem management, both because doing
so will change some of the agencies' priorities and because the broad
perspective of ecosystem management mandates that each agency
communicate its intentions more clearly. Without clear priorities supported
by sound reasoning, the substantive controversy over federal activities will
be compounded-as they are now-by frustration over the ambiguity and
apparent contradiction in federal policies and actions.

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" As we explore in previous chapters, the distinction between ecological and economic
objectives often is false. Nonetheless, we preserve it to expedite our exposition.

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