WSP12533 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

GJ1589 2002] THE lAST GREEN lAGOON 945 tentatively negotiated years earlier. The Agreement also represents, we believe, a fundamental shift in the balance of power on the River. If the cities were the victors in this latest round, then the farms - lID and CVWD - were the losers, ending the struggle with less water than they had before. This latest round in the Colorado River water wars suggests that a shift in political power from the traditional trinity of agribusiness, irrigation districts, and hydropower to municipalities, and thus from farms to cities, has begun. D. Giving in to the Pressure? The New Colorado River Swplus Criteria The California water users expressly conditioned the incorporation of the terms of the gSA into a legally binding settlement on one essential item: Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt had to adopt surplus criteria that would guarantee municipal water supplies through at least 2015.270 In an appendix to the QSA, the California water users provided their model surplus criteria, which utilized reselVoir drawdowns to guarantee surplus deliveries to California above 4.4 maf - even in dry years - through 2015.271 This would buy the California municipalities time to seek additional supplies to guard against shortages, and would give the parties time to implement the complex of water transfers and conselVation measures envisioned in the QSA. At the same time, it would allow Lower Basin users to utilize a significant portion of the flood flows that were continuing to escape to Mexico under the existing river management system. California officials have long claimed that the 60 maf of storage in the Colorado reselVoir system is more than adequate, and that excess storage causes water to be wasted in flood years.272 By allowing reselVoirs to be drawn down further during normal and ctry year operations, when wet year floods occur, more - if not all - of a wet year's floodwaters can be captured and stored in the system for human cortsumption. The QSA was expressly conditioned on Babbitt's adoption of surplus criteria that were "in all respects in conformance with" 270. See Key Terms of Quantification Settlement, supra note 263. ~ IV(B). 271. See id. at Exhibit A. This strategy is supported by official California projections that demonstrate a 50% probability of an average natural surplus flow till 2010.40% to 2020, and 30% to 2030. See McClurg, supra note 12, at 8. Of course, in the event of a serious drought, shortfalls are still possible. 272. See McClurg, supra note 12, at 13.