BOARD01141

• Board Meeting Date: 11/22/1999
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - California 4.4 Plan - Key Terms for Quantification Settlement and Surplus Criteria
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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Colorado Water Conservation Board

Department of Natural Resources
1313 Sherman Street
Denver, Colorado 80203
Phone: [phone]
FAX, (3031 866-4474

STATE OF COLOMDO

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MEMORANDUM

BiUOwens
Governor

TO:

Colorado Water Conservation Board Members

Randy Seaholm ~
Chief, Interstate Streams Investigations

GregE. Walcher
Executive Director, DNR
Peter H. Evans
Director, CVVCB

FROM:

DATE: November 14, 1999

SUBJECT: Agenda Item 20f, November 22-23, 1999 Board Meeting-
Colorado River Issues -- Califomia 4.4 Plan - Key Terms for
Quantification Settlement and Surplus Criteria

Backl!:round

In 1997 California announced a plan for reducing its use of Colorado River Water to its
compact apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet (mat) (4.4 Plan). That 4.4 Plan was
presented in two phases. Phase I was reduction in Colorado River water use to 4.8 maf
by 2015. Phase II was a reduction to 4.4 maf, but no time frame was provided. There
were several key elements to that 4.4 Plan including: (I) Quantification of rights under
Califomia's Seven Party Agreement, particularly priority 3; (2) Implementation of a
federal rule permitting the Secretary ofInterior to allow off-stream storage of unused or
intentionally created Colorado River apportionment in the Lower Division States; (3)
implementation of interim surplus and shortage criteria under the "Coordinated Long-
Range Operating Criteria for Colorado River Reservoirs"; and (4) several agreements
internal to California allowing for the transfer of conserved water and the transportation
of that water through different systems.

Kev Terms for Quantification Settlement Document

On October 15,1999 California completed a "Key Terms for Quantification Settlement
Document." This is not a final contract document, but rather the list of principles that
will be used to develop the necessary legal documents over the next 6-months. Attached
hereto is a table that compares those settlement principles to California's original "Seven
Party Agreement." The bottom line is as follows:
. The principles do not address present perfect rights directly, but they indirectly
allow for up to 46,000 AF from priorities 3 and 4 to satisfy them if underuse of
priorities I, 2 and 3 b or priority 6 or 7 water can not satisfy them.