9298

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9298
• Author: Water Education Foundation.
• Title: Colorado River Project
• USFW Year: 1999.
• USFW - Doc Type: Symposium Proceedings.
• Copyright Material: NO

Muys: One final point on what the Secretary can
do in the lower Colorado River on the mainstem as
far as these needs that market forces won't take care
of. Looking at the Boulder Canyon Project Act, the
three principal purposes the Secretary is supposed to
operate the dam for and run the river for are river
regulation, flood control and improvement of
navigation. If you take away improvement of
navigation and flood control, what's left for river
regulation? It may be taking care of salinity, it may be
taking care of habitat, maybe taking care of the fish, I
don't know. You must have some creative thoughts in
your late hours, John.

WHY: In my late hours, I don't turn to the
Colorado River Project.

Muys: Smart man.

JENSEN: Speaking oflate hours, it's getting there so
I suppose we ought to let people ask a few questions.

QUESTION FROM THE AUDIENCE: As the
water master of the Lower Basin, the Secretary
actually came by that title and that designation, both
through the Boulder Canyon Project Act and as
expanded under Arizona v. California, mainly because
we found ourselves in the Lower Basin in our
formative years not able to reach agreement on
sharing our toys or our resources. So we basically had
somebody else do that.
I'm just wondering, now that we're entering
puberty - and now that we have the ability to kind of
level our own playing field and to make sure our
boats all float - whether or not the Secretary should
continue to enjoy that power of water master in the
Lower Colorado Basin, or, as an alternative, maybe
should enjoy being water master of the entire basin.

Muys: As John [Leshy] mentioned earlier, the
Lower Basin states didn't, through the Boulder
Canyon Project Act, confer that title of special master
on the Secretary. The Supreme Court did. But the
great irony is that it was Arizona's very persuasive
arguments that overrode California's to the contrary
and persuaded the court to conclude that the
Secretary had extremely broad authority. So, in a way,
the chickens are coming home to roost and there still
may be time to look for different institutional
arrangements.
There are federal interstate compacts on the
Delaware and Susquehanna River Basins in which the
federal government is an equal partner who can be

out-voted by the other state members of those
compact commissions. If he is out-voted, he can
make a finding that the action the commission wants
to take is so outrageously immoral or against the
national interest that he is vetoing it. But it puts the
federal government on a more cooperative playing
field with the states and I think it's worked fairly well
back East. The thought of having a federal official on
a compact commission with any voting power has
always kind of terrorized Westerners, but I think it's
something to think about along the lines of institu-
tional changes.

WEATHERFORD: I think voluntary efforts to
develop shortage sharing is really where we ought to
be. Under the Decree, of course, the Secretary is
prescribed, with respect to present perfected rights, to
meet those rights on a priority basis across state lines.
That leaves a lot of other water. Even as to the present
perfected rights, if you could get those people
together as part of
a larger kind of
regional solution
in preparation for
shortages, it
seems to me that's
the way to go.
In southern
Nevada, Pat
Mulroy and
associates, who
held the domi-
nant hand with respect to seniority, gave that up for
the purpose of shortage sharing and that's what
brought unity to southern Nevada. That example
could occur on a regional scale and ought to occur
rather than waiting for a protracted drought. The
guidelines ought to be developed and be developed
by the people who have a stake in it.

TH E EVER
EVOLVING
LAW OF
THE RIVER

I think voluntary efforts
to develop shortage
sharing is really where
we ought to be.

- Gary Weatherford

GETCHES: Gary, I agree, although I don't call the
Secretary a water master, I call him a water czar.
Already the Secretary has enotmous powers in both
basins. To the extent the Upper Basin depends on
what the Secretary does in the Lower Basin to ensure
its welfare, enforce the compact and the like, the
Upper Basin is at the mercy of the Secretary, too.
Furthermore, look at all the Secretary's authority
contributing to this czarship. It comes not just from
his extraordinary contracting power in the Boulder
Canyon Project Act, but also the ability to operate
and market hydropower from dams throughout the
system, the ESA, the Indian trusteeship, international
affairs insofar as they're concerned here, and the

SYMPOSIUM
PROCEEDINGS
SEPTEMBER 1999

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