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make the decision to decommission now because from a long term benefit-cost analysis, it's the right thing to do now. We are pushing off, potentially, the very severe costs, real costs and ecosystem costs, to the future. And that actually makes a whole lot of sense to make that decision to decommission now. Finally, I'd just like to go to the question of the need for Glen Canyon Dam. Why was Glen Canyon Dam built? If you stop and think about it, it was built because of legal requirements on paper. There are no straws for agriculture that go into Lake Powell. It's not there to provide immediate irrigation. It's there as an insurance policy. It's an insurance policy for the Upper Basin so that they will have the ability to meet any compact call that comes from the Lower Basin at any time without having to give up any of their water and their rights to develop and be able to use their water. It's an insurance policy for the Lower Basin that if they make a compact call to the Upper Basin, the Upper Basin won't cry, "We need that water. We've grown reliant upon it." There actually is water put aside there. But it all comes about as a result of the 1922 Compact and those gentlemen that sat around in 1922 and divided up the basin and put a dividing line on the map and said, "We have an Upper Division and a Lower Division and the Upper Division shall deliver water to the Lower Division." These are things that aren't, even though I might be labeled a heretic for saying this, written in stone. Think about what needs we have. What are the real needs that we have in the Colorado River Basin and is the Compact still what we need in its exact form right now to meet those needs? Or, can we eliminate some of the problems, eliminate what are cumulative environmental costs by a structure like Glen Canyon Dam by looking at new solutions to meet the very same needs? The needs don't change but the solutions can. SWAN: Tom, do you have any comments about your insurance policy? TuRNEY: I'll represent all the Upper Basin states on this particular issue. None of us would like to see Glen Canyon Dam decommissioned. It was definitely put there for purposes other than the power and recreation. If it isn't there, the Upper Basin can't develop our share of water that we're entitled to. Just speaking for New Mexico, I am absolutely unwilling to curtail development, cut off my water users, the cities, the agriculture users or whomever it is that has the permits, both their current water use and any future water development that might occur, just so I can leave water to meet a downstream state's needs. Redoing the Compact - that brings up a whole different issue. It would nice, yes, to redo that so I didn't have that obligation to the downstream states but, in fact, the Compact is there. We talk in the state about trying to re-negotiate various compacts but they ate exceedingly difficult. The political environ- ment then, when these things were negotiated, is not what it is now. I personally don't think you could go through and redo any interstate compact in today's environment. SWAN: Other comments? I might be accused here today of picking on Glen Canyon Dam. I don't mean to sound that way. When I put these questions together, it just seemed that things spin off Glen Canyon Dam and the next question is in that form. There is an interesting graph, if you've seen it, that shows the water flow below all of the structures in the United States for the last hundred years or so. And so what it's really showing is water that goes to the Gulf of California. You see these various spikes in the early part of the century and there's quite a bit of water in some years and not so much in other years. And then about 1932 it decreases quite a bit and obviously that's when Hoover Dam was completed. Then you go on for a period of 30 years or so and then in the early 1960s there's a virtual flat line on that graph for about 15 years or so because the Glen Canyon gates were closed and there was no water going to the Gulf. Now in recent years, there has been water going to the Gulf because we've had surplus water flow in the river. My next question goes to that issue. When the gates of Glen Canyon Dam were closed in the early 1960s, it became possible to reduce the flows to the Gulf of California to essentially zero in normal flow years. Under current conditions, water reaches the Delta area only during surplus flow conditions and as a result of the Wellton-Mohawk Bypass out of Arizona. For the panel: How do you see the issue of water for the Delta unfolding? Is this an issue that must be addressed by both the Upper Basin and Lower Basin in addition to the federal government, and will this require a treaty amendment with Mexico? Bill. SNAPE: First of all, the panel I'll be on this after- noon will be discussing the border so I won't get into all the details. But let me just answer the last several questions that Bill poses first. Is this an issue that must be addressed by both the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin states in addition THE BALANCING ACT SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o