WMOD00414

• Title: Water and Choice in the Colorado River Basin
• Date: 5/1/1968
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

ALTERNATIVES IN WATER MAfllAGEMENT :-1

have been a wider range of choice than the concerned parties were aware of
and to point to certain paths of research that could make more informed
decisions possible in the future. Attention is focused on the Colorado basin,
not with a view to recommending specific changes in management of that
basin, but to drawing lessons that would be significant in other basins (the
Potomac, Hudson, and Columbia, for example) where the constraints are
not yet so binding.
No constraint on a method of handling water for the public good should
be assumed to be unchangeable until examined to determine its consequences.
Typical constraints might consist of a treaty providing that a certain amount
of water be delivered each year, or a Congressional authorization that directs a
bureau to plan only certain types of construction projects, or a state law
governing water rights, or a prevailing attitude that urban consumers will not
use recycled waste water. The examination may come in the stage of formu-
lation and public consideration of alternatives. At that point the tentative
plans may be presented in a form that, for study purposes, changes such
assumptions as, for example, that there is but one way to satisfy a political
commitment, or that state laws will not be changed, or that consumer pref-
erences will not shift. If this is done, more alternative lines of action will be
presented, and it may be that one will be so favored by the public that the
constraints that mark it as "impractical" or "undesirable" will be relieved by
the public. Thus, for example, the official view of the practicability of using
the same reservoir for both municipal water supply and recreation has
changed drastically in recent years, and combinations that were ignored in
earlier planning are now being sought. Also, planning is often restricted to
present, proven technology; if that constraint were relaxed, perhaps in the
light of a periodic review of scientific and technological potential, more
alternatives would emerge, as illustrated by the results of systematic efforts
in recent years to find new methods of desalting brackish water and of treat-
ing domestic waste water for reuse.
The Committee's aim is to devise a procedu(l~ for organizing scientific
analysis and scientific capabilities in such a way that new methods of man-
aging water and related resources will be developed. This procedure should
present all potentially practicable alternatives for public discussion prior to
political decision. If such a procedure could have been followed in planning
the Lower Colorado River Basin Project during the 1960's, a different course
might have been taken. The Department of the Interior, instead of initially
recommending two dams on the Colorado and later modifying its position
under pressure, might have been able to present several alternatives for public
appraisal and reaction, and perhaps a year later might have been able to rec-
ommend what it then favored. At the very least, several of the issues could
have been clarified early enough to permit a better-informed public debate.