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Basin states express interest in collaboration to get California back to 4.4 Flood control releases through Hoover Dam are critical to the interim surplus criteria. In 1997, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt drew a line in the sand: California must regain its 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet - and sooo. With the unused apportionments of Arizona and Nevada drying up, California must reduce using its augmented Colorado River supply - 5.2 million acre-feet in recent years. To do this it has been necessary for California to assemble a number of puzzle pieces, not all of which have fit together smoothly, in the Colorado River Water User Plan or so-called "4.4 Plan," f don't think California has fully appreciated how signiftcant it was that the six states sot down and developed o proposal that would aI/ow the state of California, particularly Metropolitan, to dip into the reservoir reserves," - Patricia Mulroy, Southern Nevada Water Authority After years of negotiating, three major southern California water users appear to have agreed on quantification of their water rights (though no final agreement has been signed yet) and California is now poised to move into the next phase of the plan to wean itself off the overuse of the Colorado River: interim surplus criteria. Unlike the previous intrastate negotiations between the entities in California using Colorado River water, the interim surplus guide- lines require interstate discussions between California and the other six Colorado River Basin states with final approval by the Sectetary. The object of the guidelines is to gram California surplus water from the Colorado River for 15 years while the state reduces use to 4.4 million acre-feet when required, However, devising these guidelines has proven to be the latest challenge in the efforts to reduce California's take from the Colorado. According to the Law of the River, the secretary of the Interior wields the power to declare a surplus on the river ro the benefit of California, Arizona, and Nevada (who have rights to 50%, 46% and 4% of the surplus respectively), To some extent, the 1970 Criteria for Coordinated Long-Range Operation of Colorado River Reservoirs assist with that decision as do various modeling techniques ro help the Bureau of Reclamation decide when to make releases of water from the reservoir system. But for California to truly 10 . COLORADO RIVER PROJECT. RIVER REPORT. WIl'JTER 20CO benefit from surplus water, a further definition of surplus is imperative, In October 1998, the other six basin srates unveiled their proposal on how they believe the interim surplus criteria should work. A year later, California officials proposed their own interim operating criteria attached to the quantification settlement among the southern California Colorado River users. In November 1999, the states convened in a heated discussion over California's proposed surplus guidelines. The California proposal, like the 6 basin states' proposal, outlines three "levels" of surplus based on Lake Mead elevations. The other basin states, in particular Nevada and Arizona, claimed that under California's guidelines, Lake Mead had the potential be drawn down 120 feet, exposll1g as much as two miles of the shoreline. Indeed, the California proposal suggests that under Level 3 surplus (at a point when Lake Mead is low and holds between 10.5 and 11.3 million acre-feet) releases could be made from Lake Mead when the lake level measures 1,088 feet. Power generation at Hoover Dam becomes impossible at 1,083 feet - a difference of five feet. California interests contend such a draw down would only occur during an extreme drought on the system. But for the six basin states, that's not a real assurance. "I don't think California has fully appreciated how significant it was that