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Now for the real challenge of the night. Let's try to tie all this <br />together. <br />First, we need to recognize that the future arrived sometime prior to <br />last night. Like it or not, water is the hot commodity in the multiple use <br />resource equation. Reclamation no longer is just the agency of water and <br />power development interests. It's not that we have abandoned those <br />constituencies ...nor that we no longer like them. Rather, we are all joined <br />in time when many new faces must be properly invited to participate in the <br />management process. The laws require it-Congress expects it...the public <br />demands it. Nothing is sacred ...no stands or positions are holy. All <br />possibilities are open for examination. <br />Secondly, the issues are all intertwined together. Adjust for one <br />interest, another interest feels some pain. We can seek to find the middle <br />point, but we must remember that in doing so certain requirements of the law, <br />not the least of which is the Endangered Species Act, may pull us strongly in <br />one direction or the other. <br />We must remember that water belongs to the states. That, however, is <br />not to say that the relationships between states must maintain the status quo <br />in perpetuity. The Governor of Colorado has opened the door and broached the <br />subject of transfer between states. I don't see Reclamation's role as one of <br />forcing change. Rather, we stand ready to assist the states as they work out <br />the future. In some cases, the states will even have to address these <br />problems in their constitutions. Personally, I don't see how some measure of <br />transfers can be forestalled forever. I especially see opportunity in this <br />regard for the various Tribes. <br />As to the question from Lucy, "How can the Bureau fulfill commitments to <br />water users and power producers while also protecting endangered <br />species?"...there is no pat answer. Take the Animas-La Plata Project as an <br />example. Nobody gets everything. Compromise is the rule of the day. Have we <br />fulfilled our commitments to the project sponsors through the long and arduous <br />efforts to resolve the endangered species issues that could have killed the <br />project. Personally, I think we have. I don't know if we have the best <br />possible solution ...but I do know we have a viable solution. <br />Will the eventual resolution of the Glen Canyon Dam issues fulfill <br />commitments to power producers? The answer is both yes and no. "No" in the <br />sense that the dam most likely will not be operated to provide the vast amount <br />of peaking power as in the past. "Yes" in the sense that the same amount of <br />energy will be generated, but in a different pattern. And yes, I recognize <br />that it will be at a different value. But consider this, if Glen Canyon Dam <br />were proposed today, it's quite probable it would never be built, or that it <br />would have environmental safeguards built in by way of the EIS developed prior <br />to construction. Furthermore, there is nothing to say that Congress can't <br />revisit the issue of project repayment for the benefit of power producers who <br />are losing peaking power. <br />As we have seen, the role of the public is ever increasing. About <br />20,000 individuals and organizations actively follow the Glen Canyon Dam EIS. <br />10