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A -LP Water Animas -La Plata Water Marketing Supply and Demand Study Section 3 <br />storage water designated for release in the event of a compact curtailment (call) to help minimize the <br />likelihood and amount of curtailment. Compact Compliance Storage water would be released during any <br />year in which Colorado is required to curtail its uses and water users in order to maintain the 10 -year <br />running average flow of 75,000,000 acre -feet at Lee Ferry, Arizona required by the 1922 Compact. <br />Releasing Compact Compliance Storage would directly reduce the amount of water that Colorado water <br />users would be asked to curtail in that year. <br />As it is currently understood, the use of Compact Compliance Storage would not function as a traditional <br />exchange or substitution under Colorado water law in that the point of delivery does not lie within <br />Colorado. The point of delivery would be Lee Ferry, Arizona and given that as the point of delivery any <br />Colorado water user diverting Colorado River water would be entitled to use Compact Compliance <br />Storage, regardless of where in the state it resides, to reduce any compact curtailment assigned to it. <br />The Upper Colorado River Compact signed in 1948 apportioned the 7,500,000 acre -feet of water <br />allocated to the Upper Basin by the 1922 Compact and, among other things, provided guidance on how <br />curtailments were to be shared among the Upper Division States (Article IV) in order to meet the terms of <br />Article 1I1(d) of the 1922 Compact. However, there has never been a compact curtailment, nor is one <br />likely in the near future, and there are no curtailment procedures in place. Furthermore, there are a <br />number of questions for the Upper Colorado River Commission and the Upper Division States to address <br />before a curtailment could actually be implemented. Therefore, one cannot accurately describe the <br />curtailment process or the potential magnitude of any curtailment at this time, though unlikely assuming <br />the current level of development and historically observed hydrologic conditions. <br />In addition to the work required of the Upper Colorado River Commission, the CWCB has initiated a study <br />to determine how to avoid compact curtailment, minimize the effects of any curtailment and how the <br />State Engineer could administer a curtailment once the Upper Colorado River Commission has assigned <br />Colorado its proportionate share of any curtailment. One of the specific alternatives to be evaluated in <br />Colorado's "Development of Colorado River Compact Compliance Strategies" study is the use of <br />"Compact Compliance Storage Pools." The amount of water required to be in compact compliance <br />storage is uncertain until more is understood about the probability of a curtailment, the risks associated <br />with curtailment, and how a compact curtailment would be implemented. It is assumed that Compact <br />Compliance Storage will be an important component of any water banking proposal between east slope <br />and west slope water users. A component of the State's Compact Compliance Study will include further <br />evaluation of the water banking concept being developed by the Colorado River Water Conservation <br />District, SWCD and water users. <br />While a compact curtailment is not likely in the near future, if there is a compact curtailment the amount <br />of curtailment required will likely be large and could be hundreds of thousands to millions of acre -feet. <br />Given the large amount of water that a compact curtailment could involve, the State's A -LP Water will be <br />an important and useful component of a package that could help offset the effects of compact <br />compliance, especially if this pool is considered along with the Tribal A -LP pools of water. Additional <br />information concerning curtailment volumes could be extracted from the modeling recently done for <br />"Colorado River Water Availability Study" being conducted for the CWCB but such information isn't <br />readily available in the report itself. A compact compliance package will require many components and <br />A -LP Project water could be a useful component of that package. <br />3.2.5 Additional Demand for State's A -LP Water Due to Climate Change <br />A number of studies and reports by the Colorado Water Conservation Board can be examined to identify <br />the possible effects of climate change on water demands in the A -LP Project study area and Colorado <br />River Basin in general. <br />3 -6 <br />FINAL ALP Repo r _1_13_11 LL.doex <br />