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MRK Testimony http: / /resourcesconunittee. house. gov /107cong /water /2002mar19/kassen.htn- River Basin, a basin that has its own interstate compact delivery requirements, its own phenomenal growth, its own burgeoning recreational economy that relies on healthy river flows, and its own endangered species, is an outcome that Congress should avoid. These two major categories of impacts – de- watering in the Legacy Project reach of the Arkansas River, as well as unmitigated impacts in the Colorado River Basin resulting from additional transmountain diversions – need to be thoroughly examined in the feasibility study and associated environmental review. However, H.R. 3881 defines the project and some key features, such as the target minimum flow, in a way that will prevent carefully designing the project, its operations, and environmental components to address these adverse effects and create the greatest benefit for all Coloradans. THE BUREAU'S CHALLENGE As members of this subcommittee well know, the Intermountain West is one of the fastest growing regions in the county, with Colorado as no exception. Colorado is projected to add one mill-ion residents in the next generation to the four million who already call the state home. In a state that gets, on average, 15 inches of rain annually, this growth will strain the state's water resources. Colorado is typical of the West in that irrigated a culture uses the vast majority t� J tY of the state's limited water resources, exceeding 80% of all consumptive water use. Unlike the population, however, the water supply will remain essentially constant over the next generation, given the limits of hydrology and the delivery requirements under - the Arkansas River compact with Kansas. In the quest to develop the water supplies necessary to meet the demands of growing cities, there are hard choices to make and balances to strike between fueling that growth and preserving rural communities dependent on an agricultural economy that is already highly subsidized. However, in this balancing act, it is also important not to sacrifice the aquatic environments on which much of the "New West" recreational and tourism economy depends. And, as Members of this Committee know well, our laws require that federal actions occur without endangering native species on the verge of extinction. Most western states use some form of the prior appropriation system to allocate water resources. Colorado employs a particularly pure form of this system. Thus, as the state's water courts consider requests for new or changed water rights, they cannot consider impacts on the environment in making decisions. Nor can a water court consider whether the exercise of a water right may adversely affect a local economy. In this case, the municipalities supporting the re- operation and enlargement already hold water rights that, if exercised all together, would virtually dry up the Arkansas River in the stretch between Pueblo Reservoir and Fountain Creek through the City of Pueblo if they had the additional storage that H.R. 3881 would provide. Yet, Colorado law does not provide any legal venue in which to consider directly the adverse effects on the environment or the recreational amenity that would result from the cities exercising their water rights. It is simply not illegal in Colorado to dry up streams. As a practical matter, this system causes many of Colorado's rivers and streams to run dry at some time of the year. The Colorado Division of Wildlife maintains a database that has identified at least 571 rivers where low flows are a limiting factor on the health of aquatic communities. It was not until 1973 —a century after issuance of decrees for the state's most senior water rights —that the state recognized the need to protect rivers by keeping some water in the stream. Since the creation of the state's instream flow protection program, a single state agency has been allowed to appropriate water for environmental protection purposes, but the state program has been limited in many respects. Almost all of the rights it holds are quite junior (in a system based on seniority) and the quantities are only for minimum amounts, thus limiting the habitat protection they afford. Today the program protects fewer than 20 percent of the coldwater streams in Colorado (and only a handful of others). Of the 25,000 miles of streams in the Arkansas River Basin (a figure that includes both perennial and ephemeral streams), the state's program covers over 600 miles of streams (none of which are on the mainstem of the Arkansas River). 5 of 8 3/20/02 10:18 AN'