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001&JO 956 ECOLOGY lAW QUARTERLY [Vol. 28:903 practically no storage capacity because it was designed as a diversion dam, not as a storage reservoir.323 Instead, Mexico relies on U.S. reservoirs to provide the storage and timed releases of its treaty water.324 As a result, Mexico can only divert a small quantity of any excess flows that cross the border at any given time. and can only divert them if they are timed correctly. The water that reaches the Delta via the mainstream channel is typically spring floodwater - water that Mexico cannot store, cannot control, and cannot use because it does not arrive during the prime irrigation season. The Surplus. Criteria will. tend to reduce the frequency and volume of these spring flood flows (by storing them in reservoii"s upstream); thus, the Surplus Criteria reduce the only form of "excess flow" likely to reach the Delta. BOR also argued that it lacks the discretion to deliver additional water to Mexico for purposes of protecting the Delta. 325 However, it seems only fair to point out that BOR has been delivering "additional" water to Mexico for many years - indeed, the only reason the Delta has received any water in recent years is because BOR has released, and Mexico has failed to divert, water from BOR reservoirs. Under NEPA, BOR must consider all environmental effects of its proposed action in its EIS, and "rigorously explore and objectively evaluate all reasonable alternatives" to its proposed actions, including "reasonable alternatives not within the Jurisdiction of. the lead agency. "326 Similarly, BOR must "include appropriate mitigation measures not already included in the.proposed action or altematives."327 By BOR's own admission, changing the operations of its reservoir system. will impact. the frequency and volume of flows to the Delta.328 The fact that Mexico's allocation of excess flows is beyond BOR's direct control is absolutely irrelevant to BOR's proper consideration of the impacts of its action on the Delta and its consideration of reasonable mitigation measures to prevent these impacts. While the Final EIS contains a very nice 323. Diversion dams - like Imperial Dam and Morelos Dam - are constructed primarily for the purpose of diverting water from a stream into an aqueduct 9rcanal; typically, they are smaller,.low dams that have little or no capacity in their reservoirs. By contrast, storage dams' - like Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam - tend to be large, high dams with substantial reservoir capacities. 324. See discussion of the process of Mexico"U.S. river operations on the IBWC's website, available at http://www.ibwc.state.gov/wad/body_colorado_river.htm; see also FINAL EIS, supra note 71, at 1-19, Table 1-2. 325. See FINAL EIS, supra note 71, at 3.16-1. 326. 40 C.F.R. !j 1502.14 (2001). 327. Id. 328. See FINAL EIS, supra note 71. at 3.16-20 and Attachment N.