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<br />That means that, in every watershed we should work toward a baseline necessary to maintain a healthy,
<br />natural system, below which water depletions should not take place.
<br />
<br />Selling a river entitlement for in stream flows is hardly a new idea, but in recent years it has gained new
<br />vitality. In 1983, the California Supreme Court resurrected the public trust doctrine to save Mono Lake and its
<br />migratory bird populations by limiting upstream diversions into the Los Angeles aqueducts. In 1992 the Congress
<br />directed the Interior Department to scale back transbasin diversions from the Trinity River as necessary to restore
<br />the salmon fisheries. In the Califomia Delta, the Clean Water Act was the basis of the Bay Delta Accord selling
<br />salinity standards to protect both fisheries and agricultural lands. And on the Animas River in Colorado, the
<br />Endangered Species Act has established minimum flows as the pre-condition for proposed off stream storage in the
<br />Animas La Plata project.
<br />
<br />Finally, I would like to discuss the process by which we make water policy within river basins. In the
<br />reclamation age now past, decisions affecting rivers were made one project at a time by a priesthood of technocrats -
<br />the Bureau of Reclamation, the Corps of Engineers, state water engineers, and a few key committee chainnen in
<br />Washington.
<br />
<br />In the coming century water policy must be made in the context of the entire watershed. Water is a natural
<br />resource with no fixed address, any water use inevitably affects many other uses, both upstream and downstream.
<br />That means that all stakeholders have a stake in every decision, and that in turn requires that they be included in the
<br />decision making process.
<br />
<br />Moreover, water policy making at the watershed level draws in many agencies in a unique blend of judicial
<br />processes (steam adjudications), classic rulemaking (Clean Water Act), interstate compacts, administrative licensing
<br />(Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), discretionary policy (reclamation and restoration), and a new hybrid
<br />process (Endangered Species Act) all stirred together with state laws and regulations. No agency is a law unto itself
<br />and the best results can emerge only from the process of engagement, disputation and consensus building.
<br />
<br />In this context, I have reservations about the various proposals for "River Basin Governance" set forth in
<br />the Commission report. These concepts surface anew in each generation, and reflect the political scientist's desire for
<br />adiriinistrative efficiency, tidy organization charts, and streamlined decision making -all noticeably lacking at
<br />present. But water is so central to our communities in the West that we are understandably reluctant to delegate to
<br />anyone, at whatever level, expanded authority over the use of this resource.
<br />
<br />This emerging style of multiparty, multiagency, stakeholder intensive policy development is inefficient,
<br />time consuming, slow, expensive - and effective. It works and that is the best reason for continuing on this path. Let
<br />us examine a few examples.
<br />
<br />Consider the spike flow at the Glen Canyon. Standing on a catwalk at dawn on March, 18, 1996, I turned a
<br />valve and stood back as huge jets of water arced outward from the dam face, starting a controlled flood of 45,000
<br />cubic feet per second on its way downstream through the Grand Canyon. The flood that I was releasing to restore the
<br />beaches and the habitat of the Grand Canyon was the result of 10 years of study, a multi-volume environmental _
<br />impact statement and endless meetings and consultations among federal agencies, state agencies, cities, trout
<br />fishennen, Indian tribes, river runners, the National Park Service and three other land management agencies.
<br />
<br />Ten years is a long time considering that it took only seven years to build the. dam. Back then, however,
<br />there were only a few stakeholders (power companies and irrigation districts) and one decision maker (The Bureau
<br />of Reclamation). No one bothered to think of, much less study, the effects on downstream river habitat as variable
<br />dam releases flowed through Grand Canyon National Park.
<br />
<br />The Platte River is another example. The crisis was triggered by the expiration of a hydropower license at
<br />McConaughy Dam in western Nebraska. But intervention in the licensing proceeding promptly expanded the issues
<br />into a consideration of the rights of irrigation water users on the North Platte in Wyoming, storage rights on the
<br />South Platte system in Colorado, groundwater pumping in Nebraska, protection of the river habitat used in the
<br />spring by the great migrations of sandhill and whooping cranes, and interstate delivery obligations. As a result the
<br />licensing proceeding metamorphosed into a process where the Department and the Governors of Wyoming,
<br />Colorado and Nebraska have created a process to negotiate and adjust conflicts within the entire basin.
<br />
<br />In Arizona, the largest Indian water settlement ever attempted is now under negotiation in a cooperative
<br />effort with Senator Kyl, the Arizona Department of Water Resources, the Interior Department, Arizona Indian tribes
<br />
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