WSP12467 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Uil2757 52,A. COMMENTARY ~Roc~ Mountain News Larry D. Stnrtton, Publisher, President & Chief Executive Officer Robert W. Burdick, Editor & Senior Vice President John Temple, Managing Editor Vincent Carroll, Editor oj the Editorial Pages "Give light and the peoPle will find their own way" '. 'J\""'< . .J " l" . ..... EDITORIALS Slaking California's thirst Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has warned the state of Cali- fornia, which has been sucking up far more than its share of the Colorado . River, to put itself on a I low-water diet. ~U~tV ~: Which might be lauda- on I gIVe away tory, except that he im- su.,. uses we can . sell . posed no deadlIne and the enforcement mecha- nisms are sketchy at best. Whatever they are, they're likely to give way in. any presidential year, when California's 54 electoral votes are at stake. That's far more than the total of the other six competing river basin states combined. Political rules are a very unreliable substitute for prices when it comes to controlling the demand for a limited supply. California has been drawing 5.2 million acre-feet of water from the river per year, well over the 4.4 million it is supposed to get. The three lower basin states (California, Arizona and Nevada) are guaranteed a total of 7.5 million a year uncleI' the 1922 Colorado River Compact; they've been getting far more than that because of (a) some very wet years recently and (b) the inability of the upper basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico) to use their allotment (whatever's left after the lower states get theirs, or. between 4.4 million and 11.5 million). At the same time he warned California to shape up, Babbitt made a nod toward marketplace discipline by allowing, for the first time, interstate water sales _. but only among the three lower basin states. The immediate effeCt would be to allow Arizona, which has been storing excess Colorado River water in aquifers, THE ISSUE: Protecting the state's share of the Colorado River to sell it to Nevada, which is trying to grow even faster than California. He didn't authorize such sale~ among upper basin states, or even basin-to- basin saies. Stangely enough, this doesn't bother Colorado authorities, who claim sales would violate a clause of the compact. The state position is that if sales' were made, Congress might use them as an excuse to renegotiate the entire compact. probably in favor of the more populous down-river states. But if. the lower basin states are allowed to keep current excesses for free - California is already planning reser- voirs for them - Congress is likely to start rooting around in the compact any- way when the' dry years finally come. Populous California would be protected, and Colorado would end up with nothing to show for its restraint. A 1983 law provides a fee for the state for each acre-foot of water that private water-rights holders in Colorado sell to downstream users. But the state put the kibosh on a recent attempt by Las Vegas to buy water from Chevron and Getty Oil Co., which hold vast unused water rights on the Colorado for defunct shale oil operations. Nevada would have paid for the dam, near DeBeque, and bought the water for a limited period of time. But Colorado would have collected an export fee and retained the ultimate water rights. Meanwhile, western Colorado would have been presented with a free recre- ationallake. It's time Colorado started thinking in those terms again. It certainly needs more storage along the river, or it will never be able to save water for itself to use during dry years. And if some other state wants to pay for construction and for the water itself, so much the better.