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

Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin

"sellers" must surmount before they can effect such a transfer, the agency
should withhold its support. In making this determination, the agency
should consider the full set of competing demands for water and related
resources. Similar prescriptions apply not just to this proposal but to all
institutional innovations.

An entire category of innovations, associated with the so-called devolution of
responsibility and authority from federal agencies to state and local ones, lies
on the horizon. Devolution generally entails a potentially profound change in
intergovernmental relationships so that much of the work of government is
passed from larger to more local entities. Some see devolution as an
appropriate reversal of earlier centralization of governmental activity that
will allow local stakeholders to exercise their discretion and find efficient
mechanisms for accomplishing national goals. Others are less sanguine and
see it as a potential sacrifice of hard-won standards in federal law. We
anticipate that the devolution movement will visit the resource-management
agencies in this Basin before long and they will wrestle for the foreseeable
future with issues regarding the appropriate federal role versus those of
their state and local counterparts.

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We generally endorse the concept of devolution when accompanied with
appropriate safeguards for federal interests in the Basin's ecosystem,
economy, and infrastructure. We strongly recommend that federal agencies
in the Basin anticipate devolution proposals-even develop their own-and
prepare accordingly.

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Many observers believe that, to participate successfully in a devolution
process, a federal agency sharing its authority and responsibility must be
able to specify the outcomes it wants the receiving agency to accomplish.
Then they must have appropriate mechanisms for measuring the receiving
agency's performance and holding it accountable. In short, before federal
resource managers in the Basin can effectively respond to devolution
proposals, they must know what goals they want to accomplish. Our
recommendations for taking an ecosystem-management view of the Basin's
ecosystem and economy, assessing ecological and economic conditions, and
setting priorities aim to help federal agencies be prepared when faced with
devolution proposals.

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