WSP04739

• File Number: 8274.400
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control - General Basinwide Salinity Issues - NPDES
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 7/20/1999
• Title: Immediate Release - Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum Issues Three Year Review
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: News Article/Press Release

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Public Notice/Press Release
. Review of Colorado River Water Quality Standards

The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum has reviewed the water quality standards on the
Colorado River with respect to salinity. The findings of the Forum have been published in the 1999 Rlwiew.
Water Duality Stanqards for Salinity. Colorado River System. June 1999. That document is available by
contacting the Forum offices at 106 West 500 South, Suite 101, Bountiful, Utah 84010.

The Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum is an organization of the seven Colorado: River
Basin states and federal water quality laws require that at least once every three years a review be made of
adopted water quality standards. The 1999 Review finds that there is not now a need to modify the numeric
criteria. The numeric criteria, established in 1974, provides that a program will be developed to preWilt the
total dissolved salts in the Colorado River from rising above the observed levels in 1972 at three downstream
measuring points. Those points are: on Lake Mead where Las Vegas obtains much of its water supply; on
Lake Havasu where the Central Arizona Project and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
obtain their water supply; and at Imperial Dam, the last diversion of Colorado River water in the United
States where residents in the general Yuma area and water users in California's hnperial Valley divert their
water.

The 1999 Review identifies a plan of implementation to prevent salinity levels from rising above the
historic levels. There is almost an unlimited supply of salts in marine shales that occur in the Upper
Colorado River Basin. The plan of implementation identifies strategies to reduce the dissolution of those
salts as the salinity of the river is damaging to water users in the Lower Basin in the amount of hundreds of
millions of dollars each year.

Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum
106 West 500 South, Suite 101
Bountiful, UT 84010

The deadline for the .submittal of written comments is that the comments must be in the Forum offices by
August 20, 1999, or the written comments may be hand delivered to two public meetings which have been
scheduled where also oral comments will be received. The first public meeting is to be held at the Sheraton
Hotel, 6101 W. Century Boulevard in Los Angeles, California on August 23, 1999. The meeting will begin
at 1 :00 p.m. The second public meeting will be held on August 24, 1999 in Lyman, Wyoming at the Lyman
Town Hall located at 100 East Sage Street. The meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m.

The Salinity Control Forum will be reviewing all comments and will be considering the opportunity
for publishing a supplemental report which will respond to the comments made concerning the 1999 R\:view
document and the potential for modifying or adjusting the Forum's findings. Once the Forum has completed
this process, the individual states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and
Wyoming will proceed with the adoption of the 1999 Review and transmitting that review to the EP A for
it's consideration and approval.

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