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00233G . . " Found in the Board folder is a copy of the Board's comments that were sent to Reclamation supporting a surplus declaration for 200 I. Those comments indicate that based on the most probable water supply for 2000 and 200 I, storage in the Colorado River reservoirs would increase by one million acre-feet to 52.6 million acre-feet by January 2002 if a normal criterion governed the operation of Lake Mead. Furthermore. only 7.56 million acre-feet of effective space would be available to control floods, and a 322,000 acre-foot flood control release, nearly one half of the scheduled release, would be required in January 2002. In addition to suggesting that a surplus condition was appropriate for the 2001 AOP, the comment letter suggested that the 2001 AOP should not be tied to the interim surplus criteria being developed by Reclamation because of the time needed for Reclamation to complete its process. The 2001 AOP needs to be in place prior to the time when Reclamation completes its process for implementing interim surplus criteria, The next meeting of the Colorado River Management Work Group is scheduled for June 21" at which time it is anticipated Reclamation will have a draft of the 200 I AOP for review, However, it probably will not present a recommendation on whether Lake Mead should be operated under a surplus or normal condition, Rather, B.eclamation will present several studies showing how a SurpIUS~ determination could be justified, and the resulting impacts when compared to a norm'!} aetermination. Central Arizona Project On May 3'd, the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CA WCD) and the United States agreed to a negotiated Settlement over the reimbursable costs for building the 336-mile long Central Arizona Project (CAP), The dispute began in 1993 when Reclamation declared the CAP to be substantially complete and claimed CA WCD's repayment obligation was $2.3 billion. The Settlement fixes CA WCD's repayment obligation at $1.65 billion, with 73% of the cost being interest bearing and 27% non-interest bearing. Under the Settlement, 665,224 acre-feet of CAP water will be allocated to federal purposes to be used for Indian water right settlement in Arizona. Included in the handout material is a copy ofthe Stipulate Settlement along with an article from the May issue of Water Strategist which summarizes the Settlement. California's Colorado River Water Use Plan ) ~ A working draft ofCalijornia 's Colorado River Water Use Plan was officially released for public comment on Wednesday May 11,2000. Comments will be received through December 2000, The Plan will be revised and a final draft will be prepared and distributed for comment. The inteI1! is for the Board to approve the Plan at its February 2001 meeting and nublish the Plan in March. On May 24'\ a Joint Oversight hearing was held on California's Colorado River Water Use Plan by the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources and the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committees. Three panels presented testimony and included: 1) the Administrative Agencies panel (California Department of Water Resources--Tom Hannigan and U.S. Department of the Interior-- David Hayes), 2) the Other Colorado River Users panel (Lower Basin States-Herb Dishlip and Upper Basin States-Wayne Cook) and 3) the Stakeholders panel (CVWD--Tom Levy, lID-Jesse Silva, MWD-Dennis Underwood, and SDCW A-Maureen Stapleton). During the hearing, the 3 'I