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Drought diminishes river# By itself, the Colorado River hasn't produced enough water the past five years to fill the allocations of the seven states that use it. The shortfall was covered downstream by drawing on storage in the river's network of reservoirs, mostly from Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Those reservoirs protect the upper -basin states. If the reservoirs continue to drop, those states - Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico - could be forced to give up water of their own to satisfy agreements that guarantee the lower -basin states - Arizona, Nevada and California - a minimum of 7.5 million acre -feet of water a year. Some Colorado officials have said they wouldn't deny their own people water without a fight. Others have suggested they might challenge some downstream water uses as non - essential, such as Arizona's practice of banking river water underground for future use. They would argue that in a crisis, that water should remain on the river, where it could be used immediately. The odds are long at best, most river watchers say, that the lower basin would exercise what's called a "compact call" to force the upper basin to release water. But it's one of the topics generating debate as the seven river states try to produce a plan to share shortages on the river should the drought continue. And it looms over talks aimed at solving water problems within Colorado as well. Colorado stressed From an office along the river, about 150 miles west of Denver, the Colorado River Water Conservation District helps sort out some of those problems on the state's more rural, Western Slope. The district covers 15 counties, stretching all the way to the Utah and Wyoming lines, and includes ranching areas like Kremmling. Eric Kuhn, the district's general manager, said many of the issues bubbling up along the river now didn't seem critical until recently. "We slept through 20 years of wet weather," he said. "Lake Powell was always full. Now, there's a chance that it could empty, and if that domino falls, the upper -basin states want to know if the other dominoes are just going to fall downstream, will we be affected right away." He said the bigger - picture question to answer first is whether the entire river system is over - tapped. Most water experts agree that it is. The Colorado River was apportioned based on faulty assumptions about its water levels, with shares totaling nearly 17 million acre -feet for the seven states and Mexico. That amount seemed reasonable in the 1920s, but scientists now say the river was running unusually high at the time and now averages closer to 12 million acre -feet in a normal year. In 2002, the driest year on record, the natural flow fell short of 3 million acre -feet. For Colorado and the upper basin, the bad numbers are a problem. The lower -basin states were able to secure specific allocation amounts over the years, but the compact that divides the river in the upper states promises shares based only on a percentage of the water available. Colorado winds up exporting almost three - quarters of the river to the other states. Until recently, the difference hasn't mattered. The four upper -basin states use only about 4 million acre -feet of water from the river each year, an amount that has been workable even in the drought. But growth has created new demand for water, and officials in those four states are trying to figure out how much more of the river they can use. The dilemma is most sharply defined in Colorado, where the demand is greatest and the fight fiercest between old -line agricultural users and growing cities. The dividing line is real, the Continental Divide, which splits the state in two. Nearly 80 percent of the population lives on the eastern side of the divide, the Front Range, while nearly 80 percent of the snow that feeds rivers falls on the Western Slope. Page 3 of 5 http:// Www. azcentral .comispecialslspecia1061 articles /0722colorado- drought.html 7/27/2004