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Rio Grande is trying to involve everyone to resolve how we can all live together with a finite amount <br />of water. Everyone has to be part of the solution. It is a difficult balancing act. Yesterday's dark <br />clouds "made my day." Maybe we'll have some water to manage! <br />Chuck DuMars, with Law and Resource Planning Associates, provided a thoughtful analysis <br />of the issues. Chuck is also a WSWC member representing New Mexico, and is an attorney <br />representing the Middle Rio Grande Irrigation District. He noted it is hard to pin down FWS <br />biologist on the specific needs of the silvery minnow. Their answers are elusive. The Congress has <br />charged the agency with implementing ESA, but largely without the necessary budget and resources. <br />FWS is trying to require the reoperation of water projects to mimic the natural hydropgraph. It is <br />social engineering of stream values. You comply or else. Imagine an endangered open space act. <br />If too many people move in, you order them out, and if they don't move you charge them under <br />Section 9 [the ESA takings provisions]. Conflict arises at virtually every level of society. Irrigators <br />and environmentalists alike are demonized because of their values. Collaborative decisonmaking <br />becomes very difficult. A major problem is the refusal of FWS to admit this should be an open, <br />transparent public process, with the science scrutinized and subject to legal review. Another <br />problem is determining what is in fact feasible. The case law continues to evolve, but challenges <br />have been raised regarding the scope of the science, and lack of consideration of economics. Words <br />-- such as extinction, jeopardy and waste -- are used as threats. Cause and remedy issues must be <br />addressed by courts. Questions of physical and temporal proximity to the cause are raised. There <br />are multiple causes, and we need affirmative solutions. The Middle Rio Grande and Klamath <br />irrigators are "displaced" persons. There has to be equity. The Tulare case, mentioned earlier, is <br />"sound and well reasoned." No one segment of society can impose its values on another. <br />The Northwest <br />Seattle, Washington <br />The Washington Department of Ecology and Conference of Western Attorneys General <br />cosponsored, with the Council, a symposium in Seattle, Washington on September 19 -21 st, 2001. <br />Focusing on the Northwest, the meeting drew about 70 people from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, <br />Montana and California, including federal, state and local officials. Jim Davenport, Chair of the <br />WSWC's Endangered Species Act Subcommittee, welcomed those attending, noting that given the <br />tragic events of the recent past, we all look at our conflicts differently. Despite the emotional <br />confrontations of this past summer over water uses and endangered species' needs, we look forward <br />to greater cooperation and agreement in the future. The purpose of the workshop was to bring <br />together a broad range of parties to share information, explore the current status of a number of case <br />studies, examine past practices, and prepare for future discussions. <br />Tom Fitzsimmons, Director of the Washington Department of Ecology, sought to provide a <br />framework for the discussions stating that each of us and the constituencies we represent, from <br />western governors down to individual stakeholders, find ourselves taking different positions based <br />on our values, acceptable risks, costs and uncertainty. The challenge is to find common ground and <br />build a workable future. As a climber, he used as an analogy a 10- member team, each wanting to <br />take a different route or climb a different mountain. We need to ask: "What is the goal? How can <br />23 <br />