WSP12462 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

I. ,'\ 3 )f'!.. ~J \;..1 .i.....~ V .,t anti-development attitude in Colorado, including a perceived unwillingness to address the likelihood of future droughts affecting the Colorado Front Range. The Board of County Commissioners II decision places more power in the hands of these same federal decision makers. Neither the 15- Year Agreement, nor federal actions in Colorado, take place in a context which can be regarded as neutral. Increasing pressure is being brought to bear to utilize the CRSPA reservoirs for endangered species and general environmental purposes. Through lawsuit and regulation, the management of these fe~eral facilities can be expected to be incrementally changed in a manner which has the effect of pulling water away from potential Upper Basin development, and towards California. The Colorado Supreme Court, by placing the majority of water in the Gunnison Basin within the sale powers of the Bureau of Reclamation, and outside of Colorado's system of appropriation, have exposed Colorado's remaining compact share to a growing blizzard of environmental litigation. The outcome of suits filed and unfiled is unknown, but must be viewed as generally erosive of the ability of the Upper Basin to consumptively use its remaining water resources. Such litigation, and the resultant pressure being placed on management regimes at CRSPA reservoirs, can be likened to playing poker with a deck full of wild cards--of which none are being dealt on Colorado's side of the table. In an historical context, what became the Upper Basin states were reluctant to allow water development to go forward in California and elsewhere until a Compact had been negotiated. The Upper Basin states extracted commitments to equitable entitlement and, to some extent, development as their price for allowing development of lower river resources to proceed. There appears to be no such quid pro quo involved in the 15-year agreement, though the stakes are equally high, in my view.