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. " . II ~ Western States Water Council Executive Committee Minutes San Antonio, Texas October 20,2005 Jack mentioned that the 50% budget reserves amount is at the low range of what is prudent. Many agencies recommend a higher level. WESTERN GOVERNORS' ASSOCIATION WORK PLAN ITEMS A. Request of the New Chair (Governor Napolitano of Arizona) Joan Card reported on behalf of Herb Guenther. Herb had provided a written document that outlined concepts for consideration for presentation to the Western Governors' Association (WGA), which included the following: (1) aging water infrastructure; (2) desalination; (3) drought relief act; and (4) water augmentation. Hal noted that the Management Subcommittee had met earlier this morning and discussed Herb's memo and how to go about presenting the report to WGA - whether in the form of a report or a set of recommendations. They decided it may be better to prepare a report on these issues and likely add other issues as well. After the considerable discussion previously held in the Water Resources Committee about emerging issues, some of these items fit into the category of future issues we need to focus on. Shaun stated that Governor Napolitano, WGA Chair, has set sustainability as one of the themes during her tenure at WGA. At the upcoming WGA Winter Meeting on November 8-9 in Phoenix, Arizona, the WGA Staff Council will be having a discussion about what "sustainability" means, what they want to do with this topic, including with regard to water issues. Craig has been invited to attend the meeting. There is an opportunity, through Craig, to feed into the mix for the discussion on water. Getting back to Hal's question as to whether the Council would wish to prepare a set of recommendations or a report, Shaun indicated that if the Council prepares a report, then it can be assumed that the Council is not necessarily asking the governors to do anything - it's more like "here's what is going on in the West with water;" and "here are some things on the horizon that we want to make you aware of." If recommendations are presented, then the Council is saying to the governors, "we want you to weigh in on these issues. We need the power of the Governor's office to help move these issues." That said, it is up to the Council to decide now to meet the opportunity. If the Coundl chooses the latter option, and wants to ask the governors to get out in front on some water issues, it would help greatly to elevate the recommendations if the Council would go through public outreach; that is, develop recommendations and invite comments from environmental groups, water user groups, etc., so that when the recommendations are made to the governors, they can be given the full spectmm of what kind of reaction they may get from the various sides. Shaun indicated that the idea behind the Council writing a report or recommendations is related to Governor Napolitano's chairmanship. At the Annual Meeting last June, Chairman Napolitano discussed the idea of sustainability. Hal Simpson, Craig Bell, and Shaun McGrath all attended the summer Annual Meeting and discussed the topic of sustainability and determined that clearly water must be a piece of "sustainability." We discussed the idea of holding a water summit or holding a plenary session on water. Holding a summit is no longer an option. The question then is if the WSWC has a report or recommendations that are crisp and hard-hitting, Shaun's guess is there is a chance the 3