BOARD00680

• Board Meeting Date: 7/24/2000
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - California 4.4 Plan and Interim Surplus/Shortage Criteria
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

!!. '!

.

.

.

STATE OF COLORADO

Colorado Water Conservation Board

Department of Natura 1 Resources
1313 Sherman Street, Room 721
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX: [phone]

Q

MEMORANDUM

Bill Owens
Governor

TO:

Greg E. Walcher
Executive Director

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

Randy Seaholm ~
Chief, Interstate Streams Investigations

FROM:

Peter H. Evans
cwes Director

DATE:

July 17,2000

Dan McAuliffe
Deputy Director

SUBJECT: Agenda Item 21f, July 24-25, 2000 Board Meeting-
Colorado River Basin Issues,
California 4.4 Plan and Interim Surplus\Shortage Criteria

Backl?:round

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) published a "Notice ofIntent" to
develop interim surplus\shortage criteria in the Federal Register on May 18, 1999.
Implementation of these interim criteria are one of the components needed to provide the
additional flexibility to the 1970 Coordinated Long-Range Operating Criteria for
Colorado River Reservoirs that California has requested while it reduces its uses to the
4.4 maf allowed under the "Law of the River."
The "Notice ofIntent" indicated that development of the criteria would follow the
NEP A compliance guidelines. Reclamation wanted to keep the process narrowly
focused. Reclamation initially did not want to make development of these interim criteria
and guidelines part of the AOP process because they will need to be in effect for 15
years. Conversely, they did not want to develop them as part of the 5-year review of the
1970 Coordinated Long-Range Operating Criteria for Colorado River Reservoirs because
the guidelines and criteria are only interim.
On July 7, 2000 Reclamation published notice in the Federal Register
(Attachment 1) that a Draft Environmental Impact Statement has been released
concerning the proposed adoption of specific criteria under which surplus water
conditions may be declared in the Lower Colorado River Basin during an interim period
that would extend through 2015.
Concurrently, the Colorado River Basin States have been developing the state's
version of interim surplus and shortage criteria. On October 20,1998 six of the Colorado
River Basin states jointly proposed principles to guide the development of interim surplus
and shortage criteria and specific conditions under which such criteria would be
acceptable. This was followed by the six state's "Proposal for Interim Lake Mead