9367

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

make substantially greater uses of water than we do today,
understanding that every use of water has a degrading affect on the
quality? Will we be allowed to make uses that cause these quality
degradations? What about the Indian tribes, whose lands are drained
by the Colorado River? In many jurisdictions they have been awarded
reserved rights to water. The federal government has never advanced
funds to the Indian people to allow them to construct means of
diversion so they can use their entitlement. Contrary to what 1922
drafters of the Compact thought, the Indian rights turned out to be
substantial in quantity. Where all this leaves the basin, in terms
of this tug-of-war for who gets what, remains to be seen.
Colorado, as I said before, has over 70% of the origination of
the water. Under the various institutional arrangements that have
developed since then, Colorado is suppose to receive 5101 of the 7.5
million acre-feet allocated to the Upper Basin. Depending on who you
talk to, there is at least 500,000 acre-feet, and maybe one-million
acre-feet of that allotment to Colorado that has never been developed.
The question is whether we have the means, or the ability to develop
and use the water. Is it realistic to think so? I want to
share with you one personal observation. I think, today, there are
millions of people with solutions that are probably snake oil -- there
are panaceas, there are get-rich schemes, there are all kinds of
proposals circulating for how Colorado can take advantage of those
allotments that our predecessors fought so hard to secure. Whether
those panaceas will work, remains to be seen. I want to offer one
"Nervous Nellie" kind of view. I think our issue, in Colorado, is
whether a departure from what was promised as a perpetual commitment
and an utterly secure devise to protect our future is up for grabs.
I think it is up for grabs in Wyoming. I do not think that it is up
for grabs in Utah because they are proceeding to construct a massive
project called the Central Utah Project to take their remaining share.
I think New Mexico has already developed more than its share of the
waters of the river. Colorado is left at the tail end. We do not
seem to have a realistic, common agenda amongst our people. We do not
have a common goal that we want to attain. We remain extremely
divided according to region, social proclivity, environmental
perspective, and many other issues. While I do not have any
solutions, I would like to suggest to those who feel we should cast
aside our compacts -- such an action would be a bit like what Esau did
when offered the pottage by Jacob, for his birthright. I remain of
the view that we need to work with all possible means to preserve what
was promised to us. Whether that is attainable, is not promising.
I would like to share with you how I see the problem. When John
Wesley Powell was climbing rocks in his first venture on the Colorado
River, in 1869, he found himself in a crevasse, from which he could
move neither up nor down. He wrote in his journal that while he was.
suspended in this crack in the rocks he felt his legs start to quiver.
He thought that he would fall several hundred feet to his death. At
that point, his climbing mate, a man named Broom, appeared above him
and tried to reach down to help him, but he could not reach. Powell
wrote that he thought he was a "goner" for sure, until Broom took off
his pants, and holding one end swung them down to Powell. Powell was
one-armed, and he had to let go with that one arm and grab those pants
to extract himself. I am hoping that the efforts Jim Lochhead and
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