BOARD01008

• Board Meeting Date: 1/27/2004
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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2004.

The Interim Surplus Guidelines provide the Lower Basin with access to surplus water 8 but
access to this extra water is tied to the elevation of Lake Mead. This mammoth reservoir has
steadily fallen nearly 60 feet B roughly 6 stories B in the last three years. Anyone who visits
Lake Mead or Hoover Dam will immediately notice the exposed shoreline around the lake.
Everyone who attended the ceremony at Hoover Dam on October 16th certainly noticed.

Today, Lake Mead stands at its lowest level since 1968. Should the current drought conditions
continue 8 and should Lake Mead fall another fourteen feet B access to surplus water in the
Lower Basin could be eliminated as early as January 1, 2005, just over a year from now.

In that circumstance, as Secretary, I would once again be required to limit use in the Lower
Basin to 7.5 million acre-feet. This limitation was agreed upon by all seven Basin States and
adopted by the Department of the Interior in the Interim Surplus Guidelines.

In this event, the Asoft landing@ made possible under the Interim Surplus Guidelines would once
again become a Ahard landingf for the Lower Basin. Given the population growth in the
Southwest, this reduction will especially impact municipal users in Southern California and here
in Nevada.

Some may ask whether elimination of surplus under the Interim Surplus Guidelines negates the
importance and significance of the Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement and the
Quantification Settlement Agreement.

To the contrary, the primary purpose ofthe Interim Surplus Guidelines was to establish
predictable, objective bases for declarations of surplus conditions - especially at times when
reservoirs are falling.

Likewise, the Quantification Settlement Agreement provides a water entitlement framework
among the California entities that allows water supplies to be shared among the entities - with or
without surplus water from the Colorado. It provides a basis for transfers from agricultural users
to urban users. Without this quantification it is doubtful that these transfers could have ever
been agreed upon by all the entities.

In short, these agreements provide the tools necessary for California to live within its 4.4 million
acre-foot allocation from the Colorado.

Although we do not know how long or severe the drought will be, we have a responsibility to
plan for the possibility that surplus water may not be available in the Lower Basin for an
extended period of time. We may also need to accelerate the development of procedures for the
administration of shortages on the Lower Colorado.

With drought and water shortages in other river basins over the past two years, Interior's
leadership has learned a lot - sometimes the hard way. In the Klamath Basin - in the Middle Rio
Grande - there have been struggles, but ultimately we are finding ways to balance the needs of
fanners and cities and endangered species.

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