BOARD00577

• Board Meeting Date: 9/13/2005
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - Seven State Letter to Bureau of Reclamation Referencing June 16th Federal Register Notice
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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STATE OF COLORADO

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman Street, Room 721
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]
www.cwcb.state.co.us

MEMORANDUM

Bill Owens
Governor

To:

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

Russell George
Executive Director

From:

Randy Seaholm
Chief, Water Supply Protection

Rod Kuharich
CWCB Director

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Date:

September 6, 2005

Rick Brown
Acting Deputy Director

Subject:

Agenda Item 15, September 13-14,2005 Board Meeting -- Colorado River Issues

The following is an overview ofthe activities that have occurred over the last couple of months
regarding Colorado River issues. Staff would like to review the positions taken and receive any
additional guidance the Board would like to offer.

'-State Letter to Reclamation concern in I! Colorado River Reservoir Operations and the
Development of Manal!ement Stratel!ies for Lakes Powell and Mead Under Low Reservoir
Conditions Pursuant to Interior's Federal Rel!ister Notice of June 15. 2005.

The most recent meeting was held in San Diego, California on August 25th. Mark Limbaugh,
newly appointed assistant secretary at Interior, along with several folks from Reclamation were
in attendance. In total, there were approximately 50 people present with each of the Basin states
having 2 or 3 representatives, and the rest representing the major water users in Arizona and
California.

7 -State Letter

The purpose of this letter is for all parties involved to lay everything, including legal positions
that are considered sacred, on the table for discussion. Several versions of the proposed letter
had been circulated in advance ofthe meeting, thus the contents ofthe letter were fairly well
agreed upon prior to the meeting. The letter is to be nothing more than a list of topics for
discussion; there are absolutely no agreements on anything implied or otherwise.

However, even with these understandings, California and Nevada were still at odds over
language under the "Augmentation of Supply" portion of the letter. Nevada wanted language
that was more specific with respect to augmentation for their proposed Virgin River Project,
while California wanted language that was more neutral and that did not force project specific
issues at this point. New Mexico and Arizona also had some small but substantive changes to
the letter, which were incorporated without any significant debate. There was brief discussion

Flood Protection. Water Supply Planning and Finance. Stream and Lake Protection
Water Supply Protection. Conservation and Drought Planning