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• Board Meeting Date: 7/11/2007
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

-FEDERAL AND INTERSTATE-

Mark Limbaugh To Leave Interior: Mark Limbaugh has submitted his
resignation as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science to President Bush and
Secretary Kempthorne effective Friday, July 13, 2007 in order to pursue opportunities in
the private sector in Washington D.C. Mark has held several positions at Interior and
Reclamation the past five and a half years including the last two as the Assistant
Secretary. Mark has been extensively involved in Colorado River issues and has served
as the chairman of the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Workgroup, which
was authorized by the 1992 Grand Canyon Protection Act.

Climate Change and Variability: On June 6, the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee's Water and Power Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Maria
Cantwell (D-WA), held a hearing on climate change and its effects on water resources.
Testifying were: Phil Mote, University of Washington; Brad Udalt Director of the
Western Water Assessment; Christopher Milly, U. S. Geological Survey; Pat O'Toole,
Family Farm Alliance President; Tim Brick, Chairman of the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California; Jack Williams of Trout Unlimited; Tim Culbertson,
General Manager, Grant County Public Utility District; and Terry Fulp, Bureau of
Reclamation.

Dr. Mote noted that in the West, 70% of runoff is from snowmelt, and the snowpack
holds more water than all the reservoirs combined. Peak runoff is shifting, coming an
average of two weeks earlier, with the largest shifts in the Northwest. While global
warming, attributed to rising greenhouse gases, may lead to an increase in
precipitation, in the Northwest it won't offset the effects of the loss of snowpack. He
testified, "...hydrologic shifts in response to warming - elevation-dependent losses in
snow storage, with concomitant increases in winter flow and decreases in summer flow
- are a harbinger of changes to come."

Mr. Udall observed, II All water planning is based on the idea of a static climate....
However, we now know that our future climate will not look like the past, and that in
addition to warmer temperatures the normal patters of water movement around the
globe will change...and the water cycle will adjust with potentially large impacts on
humans. This fundamental fact has profound implications for water management." He
continued, discussing the situation in the Southwest and Colorado River Basin, saying,
liThe recent drought, which has featured extended low flows not seen in the 100-year
gauged record, has resulted in the loss of 30 million acre-feet of water, the equivalent of
two years of annual flow and half of the maximum total storage.... Lake Mead is

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