Minutes Mar 2007 CBRT

• Basin Roundtable: Colorado
• Title: Minutes
• Date: 3/26/2007
• Basin Roundtables - Doc Type: Minutes

assessment of water that Colorado can use. Colorado currently consumes about 2.5 maf, and
SWSI predicts that an additional .6 mafwill be needed to fill the 20% gap. Under a global
warming scenario, the water actually available to Colorado may be much lower than 3.079
maf.

e. There's no answer to the question of how much water is available to Colorado. The better
analysis is to consider a range of possible scenarios under different precipitation models.
Future development depends on assessing the risks that water may not be available in the
future, and what to do if this occurs.

f. Cities that acquire water rights today must understand that water may not be available in the
future. Reservoirs are never drawn down to zero because reservoir managers do not know
what the future holds. They always hold back additional water in storage in case future
precipitation is less. So it is wrong to base water predictions on storage capacity, since the
total capacity is not available for distribution. Lake Powell levels cannot decrease below the
level required to run the turbines, and Lake Mead levels cannot decrease below the Las
Vegas intake pipes.

g. Cities and developers that base water use on average yield must understand that there will be
years when the actual yield available for distribution is lower. The Colorado River Water
Conservation District wants transparency so that parties at risk know they are at risk.

h. The amount of water consumed by oil shale and energy development is equally uncertain.

1. What happens in one of the four Western Slope water basins impacts all of the basins. The
four Western Slope roundtables cannot individually decide how much unappropriated water
they have since all four basins are connected by one river and the 1922 and 1948 river
compacts.

J. The big question facing Colorado is how to the state will deal with future Lower Basin water
calls. There is mounting evidence that the answers we thought we had in the past are not
right. The inflow into Lake Powell this year is predicted to be 59% of average, and by next
year we could be in a critical drought resembling the 1953-1964 drought. The Colorado
River is a border stream, and no one state engineer, nor even a state or nation, has authority
over it. The Secretary of the Interior is the water manager that must contract with any party
using the water.

k. The Bureau of Reclamation recently posted a 6,000 page shortage criteria EIS on the web,
available at www.usbr.gov\LC for the lower Colorado River and at www.usbr.gov\UC for the
upper Colorado River.

9. Presentation by Ken Neubecker on Non Consumptive Needs Assessment. Ken Neubecker
updated the non-consumptive needs assessment that is mandated by House Bill 05-1177.

a. House Bill 05-1177 requires that a needs assessment be performed for both consumptive and
non-consumptive water uses. A bill is currently pending in Colorado to provide $500,000 to
the CWCB to attempt to determine the quantity of water available in Colorado for further
use. That bill differs from the non-consumptive needs assessment that the CBR T
environmental subcommittee is working toward.

b. The components of the NCNA include:

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