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forbearance area. Type two would be Indian reserve water rights, which would be state adjudicated or quantified. The Indian tribes need to be a major player in that because if they're left out, they will probably attempt to go their own way and that creates other problems. Under our concept, we would rather keep it on a state-to-state basis, have the tribes participate in the water bank and get the benefits from that. The third type of water would be currently used consumptive existing rights that would un- doubtedly require acreage to be taken out of irriga- tion. A water bank could be made up of a combination of these three types of water. For example, 50 percent of the water bank could be undeveloped apportion- ments, 25 percent could be Indian water, and 25 percent could be taken from existing agricultural lands. The Upper Basin states may want to limit the water bank to, say, 200,000 or 300,000 acre-feet and allow each state to participate in the bank at the same percentage rate as the Upper Basin compact allocates water between them. In that case, if Colorado wanted to participate, they would have a bigger share of the bank because they have a bigger Upper Basin apportionment. The bank could market water short term, say 20 to 50 years, or for a longer term, 50 to 100 years. One of the biggest problems would be to ensure that the water could be pulled back if and when it was needed. Those are issues that would have to be fleshed out, but certainly I think could be accom- plished. So one may ask, Why do this? The Lower Basin is already getting the Upper Basin surplus for free and they're going to continue to get it for free if the Upper Basin states continue to have constraints on development of their water. The state of Utah has even looked at the possibility of a takings claim against the United States if federal regulatory actions prevent us from developing our apportionment. So, if you're not going to develop it now, why not get paid for it? If it's going to run down the river anyway, why not get some economic benefit for it? There are probably as many political constraints as legal constraints. Again, I don't know whether this is an idea whose time has come, but it's at least an idea that we believe needs to be looked at and so we can start planning for the future. If it never pans out, so be it. GARy HANSEN, WATER REsOURCES DIRECTOR, COWRADO RIvER INDIAN TRIBES It's a pleasure to be here in these beautiful surroundings and it's good to come up here and check out the condition of our watershed up here, find out how you're treating our watershed. There certainly are a lot of development up here and given the future of, perhaps, people working in their homes, these may be the future suburbs of Denver or Phoenix or maybe even Chicago. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. My remarks today will deal with the position of the Colorado River Indian Tribes. There are 30 or so tribes in the Colorado River Basin, each one has its own position on their water rights. So in order to find out what they each would like, you'd have to talk to them each individually. My remarks will be primarily on the Colorado River Indian Tribes' position. How do the Colorado River Indian Tribes feel about water marketing? What is their vision of water marketing? Their vision is that the water could be leased. We would lease the ability to use our water rights for a tempo- rary period of time. This would not be a sale or transfer of our water on any permanent basis. That will never happen with our rights, we will hold our rights forever. But a lease for a temporary period is certainly possible. As envisioned by the Tribes, we would lease a portion of our irrigable acres on our reservation and the lessee of those lands would have use of the water apportioned to those lands through the practicably irrigable acreage calculation that gave us our rights. The water right would never be separated from the reservation. It would stay tied to the land. The lessee could use the water on the reservation, on that land, or they could use it off the reservation if they choose. Water used off the reservation would be deducted from our diversion right so we would not have the ability to use water that has been taken off. That's the way we envision a lease working. It's pretty straight- forward. It's very similar to the existing land lease provisions that we have now. As far as the best way to use a tribal water lease that we envision, the uses are limited. The reason uses are limited is because the user could not depend on our water in perpetuity. It would be available only for the term of the lease and, in our mind, that would be a relatively short period. How do the Colorado WATER MARKETING ON THE COLORADO RIVER River Indian Tribes feel about water marketing? Their vision is that the water could be leased. - Gary Hansen SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 o