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Rod.<:y MQuntain News: State e e Page 2 of2 "We clearly didn't get there. So we'll begin briefing the secretary tomorrow and we'll continue briefing her Thursday and Friday until she's prepared to make her decision." Riding on Norton's drought-management plan are potentially historic new legal precedents in Western water law and millions in recreation dollars and electric power sales from Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell and Lake Mead's Hoover Dam. Under a 1922 compact, Colorado River water is divided equally between the Upper Basin states, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, and the Lower Basin states, California, Nevada and Arizona. Each basin gets 7.5 million acre-feet. Last December, John Keys, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, warned the seven states they needed to begin resolving long-standing differences to get at a potentially bigger issue: how some 25 million people who depend on the river can share its waters if chronic drought becomes the norm, as it has been for the past five years. As part of the drought talks, the Upper Basin states sought a reduction of as much as 700,000 acre-feet in the amount of water released from Lake Powell this year to help it recover from the drought. The giant storage pond on the Utah-Arizona border is just 34 percent full, its lowest level since 1969. If the lake drops too low, Colorado and the other Upper Basin states might have to deliver more of their own supplies to ensure that cities such as Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles get their fair share under the 1922 compact. Such a situation, though unlikely, has Colorado water officials scrambling to figure out how they would cope with such a demand for extra supplies. The headwaters of the Colorado River occur high in the Never Summer Mountains in Rocky Mountain National Park and supply about half the water used on Colorado's Front Range. Colorado's General Assembly and the state's congressional delegation have also weighed in, asking Norton to protect Lake Powell's supplies until it can recoup some of its losses. "We think it is definitely within her authority to make a modification in the release," said Randy Seaholm, a manager at the Colorado Water Conservation Board, who has been representing Colorado in the talks. But officials from California and Nevada on Tuesday, though tight-lipped, made clear they were unwilling to go along with anything that would reduce their share of river water this year. "We in the Lower Basin states believe the hydrologic conditions do not justify any change in the release," said Gerald Zimmerman, a representative from California. smithj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5474 Cop,yright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved. http://www.rockymountainnews.comldrmn/cda/article-print/0.1983.DRMN 21 3732554 ... 4/28/2005 - - -