BOARD02567

• Board Meeting Date: 1/24/2001
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

sides of the border - on how to improve the riparian and estuarine ecology of the delta and to find a balance between all
the competing water users and resource needs on a basin-wide scale.

To be sure, these steps are only a beginning, but they serve to identifY a key agenda item for our two nations as the new
century begins. We already have in place several elements of a new era of environmental collaboration and cooperation
with our neighbors in Mexico. The Fish and Wildlife Service has been working with its Mexican counterparts on
developing management protocols for two biosphere reserves, Pinacate and Alto Golfo, that Mexico established in 1993.

More recently proposals have been made to establish a new Sonoran desert protected area in southwestern Arizona that
would adjoin the biosphere reserves and that could be symbolic of a joint commitment to protecting the border region
environment and sustaining its economy.

I want to emphasize that dealing with the needs of the Delta may be the single most important piece of unfinished
business on the Colorado River, and I urge you, as water users on the American side of the border, to approach this issue
proactively. We know there are a number of potential win/win opportunities that can and should be explored in bilateral
negotiations and with the advice of stakeholders in both countries - among them are water banking, new opportunities for
use of Me xi cali Valley drain water, and water purchases from both Mexican and U.S. users, just to mention a few.

Water Allocation: Perhaps our greatest achievement of the past decade is working out new water use arrangements in the
Lower Basin. By 1990, Arizona had reached full utilization of its apportionment, California was drawing nearly a
million-acre feet above its apportionment, and Nevada was chafing under compact apportionment limitations entered into
at a time when no one anticipated the growth future of Las Vegas and Clark County. These combustible realities could
have exploded into decades of litigation, but wisely, we instead agreed upon a course of careful analysis and thoughtful
negotiation. Reading over the texts of my remarks at previous meetings has refreshed my memory as to just how difficult
these negotiations have been over the past eight years. But we have succeeded, and we are now ready to publish the final
rules and regulations that will implement our agreed solutions.

As we joined with you to negotiate these matters, we have attempted to demonstrate that changes in water use can be
made without economic dislocation and with enhancements to the environment. At every turn we have emphasized the
importance of water use efficiency and the development of market mechanisms.

California: The key to bringing California's Colorado River uses into line with its allocation has been to craft a realistic
step-down of reductions in its demands, reductions that wiII be facilitated by the adoption of improved, predictable
criteria for declaring surpluses at Hoover Dam, during the implementation period, that are acceptable to all the basin
states. This has been a difficult process, and it has taken extensive negotiation over a considerable period of time. I want
to congratulate all the basin states for their efforts and their achievement.

Fundamental to this agreement is, of course, the California Colorado River Water Use Plan which calls for a combination
of conservation and intra-state exchanges that will reduce California's dependency on surplus. Among the elements of
the Plan are the transfer of at least 200,000 acre-feet of water from the Imperial Irrigation District to San Diego, as well
as the water from the earlier IIDIMWD transfer, to be transported tlrrough the Colorado River aqueduct; lining ofthe All-
American canal and additional portions of the Coachella canal; the negotiation of contractual dry-year options with
agricultural irrigators to make available mutually agreed-on temporary supplemental supplies; and the use of off stream
groundwater storage during wet periods to provide an additional source to be available during normal or shortage years.
By these means, during the period ending in 2016, California intends to reduce its reliance on Colorado River water to its
4.4 million acre-feet apportionment. The interim surplus criteria that I will soon put into effect will contain specific
benchmarks, conditioning the continuation of those criteria on California's achievement of specified reductions in its need
for Colorado River surplus.

ill the process of crafting a comprehensive California plan, a quantification agreement has been negotiated between the
Imperial Irrigation District, the Coachella Valley Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of southern
California resolving a dispute of more than 65 years' standing, which opened the way to the lID-San Diego transfer. I am
pleased to report that the California parties and my office have now reached agreement on a new legal framework that
quantifies the California entitlement and that will allow the California Plan to be fully implemented. The Boards of the
tlrree primary California contractors involved - lID, CVWD, and the MET - adopted a resolution last night which
confirms the successful conclusion of these negotiations, and which releases all ofthese legal documents for public
review.

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