WSP01522

• File Number: 8210.140.20
• Description: Colorado River Basin Organizations and Entities - Colorado River Basin States Forum - California
• State: CA
• Basin: Western Slope
• Date: 1/1/1979
• Author: Myron B Holburt
• Title: Annual Report for the Calendar Year 1978
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

:iG~3

STATE OF CALIFORNIA-THE RESOURCES AGENCY

EDMUND G. BROWN JR., GOVernor

COLORADO RIVER BOARD OF CALIFORNIA
107 SOUTH BROADWAY, ROOM 8103
LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA 90012
[phone]

~

August 3, 1979

Honorable Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Governor of California
State Capitol
Sacramento, California 95814

Dear Governor Brown:

We are pleased to present to you and the Legislature the Colorado River Board's
Annual Report for Calendar Year 1978.

In my letter to you dated June 27, 1978, transmitting the Board's 1977 Annual Report,
I pointed out the importance of California's Colorado River water supply in alleviating a
critical water supply problem during the 1977 drought year. I am now pleased to report
that both the 1978 and 1979 water years resulted in above normal runoff in the Colorado
River Basin and that the major water storage reservoirs now have more water in storage than
they did before the drought. Anticipating the reduced deliveries to California that will
occur when the Central Arizona Project is completed in about six years, the Board is coop-
eratively investigating with the Department of Water Resources and the Metropolitan Water
District a program whereby in years of good supply from the State Water Project, MWD would
take more State water, reduce its Colorado River water use and obtain credits in an account
to be established in Lake Mead. In years of poor water supply, MWD would reduce its taking
of State Project water and divert additional Colorado River water.

The Board's engineering staff played a major role in conducting the studies and pre-
paring the report of the seven-state Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum for the
first triennial revision of the water quality standards for the Colorado River System. The
Board continued its close working relationships with federal agencies and others involved
in the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program. There was considerable activity in
the lawsuit, Environmental Defense Fund vs. the Environmental Protection Agency, Department
of the Interior and the seven basin states to set aside the approved Colorado River salinity
standards.

A new phase of the open-ended Arizona v. California litigation commenced in December
1978 with the filing by the United States of a motion with the U. S. Supreme Court to per-
mit diversion of almost 200,000 acre-feet of additional Colorado River mainstream water to
the five Indian reservations for irrigation use along the lower Colorado River. These
tribes were allocated 1,000,000 acre-feet of diversion rights by the U. S. Supreme Court
in 1964. The new claims include about 86,000 acre-feet in California that would have to
be taken away from existing users. An old issue, that of Present Perfected Rights (pre-
1929 Colorado River water rights), was resolved on January 9, 1979, when the Court entered
a supplemental decree for their determination that was identical to one that had been
agreed to by the state parties and the United States.

These and other activities in the Colorado River Basin are described in the report
which follows and in a separate supplemental appendix.

s~ur~~

PATRICIA C. NAGLE, Chairman
and Colorado River Commissioner