WSP00180 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. . w ~ w 00 River water.5 While those charged with administration of state or fed- eral laws may exercise some discretion, one administrator may choose a rigid legal posture while another may seek innovative methods to achieve water reuse. Those responsible for the. allocation of water rights in the seven Colorado River Basin states reflect the influences of state policy, their own predisposition toward water matters, and public or personal reaction toward the competing demands for water--be it environmental or developmental. The cliche that "nb'man is an is," land" is illustrated in water management as well as elsewhere, Each administrator, each policymaker, reacts as an individual as well as an agent of the law. It is in this personalized area that institutional obstacles, or incentives, to water reuse may take form. If an adminis- trator perceives an impetus toward water reuse--as a matter of policy, or politics, or social pressure--he is apt to be more amenable to find- ing potential sources of water for reuse and linking them to users, If no reuse impetus is preceived and an administrator does not have any personal leanings toward it, water allocation is likely to proceed on a business-as-usual basis and reuse potential may even be hindered through strict interpretations of statutory provisions. The Role of the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum As mentioned earlier, the Colorado River Basin Salinity Contr61 Forum (hereafter called Forum) was created in response to Section 103 of P.L. 92-500's call for creation of an interstate mechanism to cooperate in setting numeric criteria for salinity in the Colorado River. Its companion body, the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Advisory Coun- cil, was created about eight months later (June 24, 1974) by Section 204 of P.L. 93-320 to serve as an official advisory council to the Depart- ments of Interior and Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency and as a liaison between the states and the federal agencies on salinity matters. In all but official capacity the Forum is the same as the Advisory Council, and Forum debates, questions and positions become those of the Council. In response to its creating mechanism the Forum has developed a salinity control plan, consistently addressed salinity issues from a basin-wide approach, monitored progress on structural sa- linity control projects, given congressional testimony on behalf of proj- ect funding, and kept each state apprised of the status of structural and nonstructural progress in salinity control. SA more complete discussion of the elements of institutions and institutional components can be found in Loretta C. Lohman, "Legal and Institutional Considerations in Water Reuse," State-of-the-Art of Water Reuse, ed. J, Middlebrook (Ann Arbor Science Publishers, forthcoming). II-6