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OCT-1~-98 FRI 11:09 UPPER COLORADO RIVER COMM P.14 OOJ:~35 Six State Proposal Straw Man Draft October 13, 1998 enhanced space building criteria was proposed by the Bureau of Reclamation based on studies performed following the 1983 flood events on the Colorado River. In January, 1986, the Bureau issued a special report titled Colorado River - Alterative Operatin~ Strategies for Distributing SU'1'lus Water i\Dq J\voidiDS Spill~. This report suggested operating strategies for avoiding Lake Mead spills that went beyond the Corps of Engineers flood control criteria, but were in essence based on similar principles. Under this criteria, surpluses would be declared based on the need to provide adequate storage capacity for an assumed runoff rather than the actual yearly forecast. The Six States propose that the assumed runoff be the value of the 70th percentile of exceedance based on the historic record which is equivalent to about 17.331 maf runoff above Lake Powell. Technical studies have named this strategy "70R." In recent years, the Bureau of Reclamation has investigated a number of surplus strategies including "spill avoidance," "flood control avoidance," and "shortage avoidance.n All of these methods huve positives and negatives associated with them. The Six States believe that the "70R" strategy is the best for use during this temporary period because the water provided as surplus is incremental to the previous tier of a full M&l surplus. In other words, the surplus strategy is n9t necessary to provide additional water for high value M&I uses since those uses have already been met. The increment of use that could be available above M&I would likely be.for additional groundwater banking and perhaps additional agricultural water in California, Arizona, or Mexico. The 13