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<br />Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin <br /> <br />recommend that the Bureau of Reclamation (BuRec), the Army Corps of <br />Engineers (CoE), and other resource-management agencies, working with <br />Congress, broaden the scope of activities authorized for federal dams and <br />other facilities. Congress should specifY economic and ecosystem goals for <br />the Basin, identifY priorities for how the facilities should contribute to the <br />attainment ofthese goals, and give the agencies greater leeway to work <br />toward them. <br /> <br />We recommend that federal agencies support institutional innovations to <br />facilitate voluntary transfers of resources from low-value to high-value uses. <br />In particular, we encourage federal resource managers to anticipate <br />proposals, and even develop their own, for the devolution of <br />resource-management responsibility and authority from federal agencies to <br />state and local ones. To participate successfully in a devolution process, <br />federal agencies must be prepared to specifY the outcomes they want to see. <br />Then they must have appropriate mechanisms for measuring progress <br />toward individual outcomes, and actions for holding state and local agencies <br />accountable. <br /> <br />3. Recommendation #3: Clarify Federal Interests in the Basin's Water and <br />Related Resources <br /> <br />We recommend that the federal resource-management agencies initiate <br />meaningful steps to clarifY the federal interests in the Basin's water and <br />related resources. There are at least five general categories of federal <br />interest in the Basin's resources to be clarified: stewardship, corporate, <br />Pueblo trust responsibilities, economic-welfare, and public-participation. <br />Each of these is affected by risk and uncertainty, to the point that the <br />distribution of risk, itself, constitutes a federal interest in the resources that <br />should be clarified. <br /> <br />'. <br /> <br />f; <br /> <br />We recommend that each agency prepare a statement of its interest in the <br />Basin's resources. This statement should be informed by the results of <br />adopting an ecosystem-management approach, completing the assessment of <br />the Basin's ecological and economic conditions, and setting priorities. It <br />should explicitly address each types of potential federal interest, including <br />those associated with risk and uncertainty. Where necessary, it should <br />identifY where the federal interest remains ambiguous and explore <br />mechanisms for resolving the ambiguity. <br /> <br />/. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />S-10 <br /> <br />(<,28'73 <br /> <br />, <br />