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But having instream flow rights that cross an international boundary, THE BALANCI NG ACT SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o to the federal government? Yes. Will this require a treaty amendment, i.e., ecological minute, with Mexico? Again, I think the answer there is, yes. I think a treaty amendment with Mexico will occur, but I think it will occur as a result of the fact that all the stakeholders and all of the various parties - I don't mean just the United States government and the Mexican government - will show a commitment to restore the Delta and to have the Gulf of California, specifically the northern reach, be healthy. So I don't think the treaty amendment will come down and evetyone will scramble to comply with that. I think the treaty amendment will sort of confirm and ratify a series of agreements and understandings that will occur. Certainly we need to preserve the Wellton- Mohawk flow into the Santa Clara Slough. I'll talk more about that this afternoon. I think the whole concept of surplus criteria must have an ecological component. There must be ecological cri teria to the concept of surplus. The Salton Sea is a massive question mark and head- ache, certainly with regard to the Gulf and the Delta. What this all leads to, and it sort of comes full circle with regard to what the treaty amendment with Mexico would look like, is that ultimately what we're talking about is instream flow rights, international instream flow rights. There are maybe some examples in the Middle East. There are some examples maybe in Africa. But this is uncharted legal territory and that's where the challenge will be. We have instream flow rights in most states throughout the West. But having instream flow rights that cross an international boundary, that's a new ball game. We have instream flow rights in most states throughout the West. that's a new ball game. - Bill Snape SWAN: You have a new report out, don't you, Bill, on this? SNAPE: Actually, the Environmental Defense Fund, Carlos Valdez, who is in the audience, and Ed Glenn, who will be here this afternoon, just published a report. We'll talk about this more, but they showed that restoring the Delta and having flows reach the Gulf of California may not be as onerous as we might think. Restoration is quite achievable and would nor cause much pain at all to existing water uses. RINNE: One of the things that I am still not sure of and that I think is probably one of the issues we must address in the Delta is how much water is needed there on a short term or periodic basis to sustain habitat. I don'r think that's well defined yet. I think that's a data gap that we have to do more work on with Mexico to understand the need and how to use its share of the water. The solution probably comes with how Mexico wants to manage that part of the Delta and it probably comes from some combination of ag flows, groundwater and maybe taking advantage of flood flows. It's a good first step but the study is just a one time snapshot that says, "We observed flows and it took this much and it went to the Delta." I think the scientific end of it needs more investigation. No doubt in my mind either that the Delta is a very important and emerging issue stated well by some of the panel members yesterday. It will take international and local support. There's not a single group that can pull that off. SWAN: Do you foresee the need for a treaty? RINNE: I thought about the treaty. I suspect that something pursuant to the treaty might have to be done if coordination and collaboration aren't enough. Whether it's a treaty amendment or a minute, I don't know. I think there's agreement that some kind of a bi-national agreement would have to be worked on. And there are efforts underway now, at least some discussions, to see what we can do. I really don't know whether it gets to impacting the treaty. HYDE: I want to make two quick points. One is that scientific evidence is pointing to the fact that the Delta was probably the most important ecological component of the Colorado River system. It was potentially, in pre-dam times, the area from which the whole Colorado River system was recolonized by species after the high disturbance elements of the system wiped out certain areas of the Colorado River. So it is critically important from an ecological perspective that the Delta issue doesn't get swept under the carpet. The second point I would make is, if we did not store two years worth of river flow in Lake Powell reservoir, we would have somewhere along the lines of 800,000 to 1 million acre-feet of additional water