GunnisonComments14

• Basin: Gunnison
• Title: Comments 14
• SWSI - Doc Type: Comments

Gary Hausler
Western States Water Resources, LLC
Email: [e-mail]
Phone: [phone]

Submittal for Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, Water Conference
Discussion Topic: Water Supply and Resource Management Coordination

Executive Summary:

A
Sustainable Source
Of Water for the
Western United States
Since the days of the Forty-niners, the Western U.S. has suffered from a chronic shortage
of water. The Colorado River runs approximately 12,000,000 acre-feet (AF) annually. With
intense population pressure throughout the entire Colorado River drainage, the river does not
produce enough water to fill demand.
The Mississippi River above New Orleans runs approximately 2,000,000 AF per day
during spring run-off which lasts about ten days each year. This totals more than the entire
annual flow of the Colorado. The Mississippi has average annual flows exceeding 300 million
AF.
Local, regional, and state water departments in the Southwest and Southern Plains states
are struggling to develop plans to provide adequate water supplies for current and future
environmental needs, growth, and to sustain agriculture.
A consortium of states, similar to the Colorado River Compact, can be formed to build a
pipeline from the Mississippi River south of Cairo, Illinois to pump an initial 1,000,000 AF of
water annually. The western terminus of the pipeline could be the divide between the South
Platte and Arkansas River drainages south of Denver on the Eastern Slope of the Continental
Divide. Water diverted from the Mississippi would amount to less than 1 \2 of 1 % of average
annual flow.
The project is estimated to cost between $ 15 and $ 20 billion for the initial 1,000,000 AF
per year. The project can be financed, without Federal money, by permitting 400,000 AF
currently diverted from the Colorado River into the Mississippi River drainage to flow down the
Colorado River to water users in Arizona, Nevada and California for a one-time charge of $ ,
20,000 per acre-ft. An additional 200,000 AF of Colorado's Colorado River Compact entitlement
could be sold to lower basin users to bring the total to 600,000 AF or $ 12 billion. The remaining
$ 8 billion of a total $ 20 billion cost could be raised in the commercial financial markets. Debt
service would be approximately $ 850 per AF for the duration of the assumed 20 year finance
period at 5 % interest plus annual operating and maintenance costs of $ 1,925 per net AF
delivered. Total annual cost would be $ 2,775 per net AF. This is less than charges currently
being paid by some residential customers in the Denver metro area. Finance and operating costs
would have to be distributed and paid for by water users in all the states that receive benefit.
The initial pipeline\canal system would be sized to accommodate water users in states
that the system passes through. Extensions could be built to pump water through existing tunnels
under the Continental Divide for increased flows down the Colorado River and others into the
Rio Grande River drainage.
There would be.great benefits throughout the Southwest and Southern Plains for the
environment, endangered species, agriculture, and metropolitan areas from increased flows in the
regions' rivers including the South Platte,. Arkansas, Colorado, and Rio Grande.