WSP05673

• File Number: 8210.140.20
• Description: Colorado River Basin Organizations and Entities - Colorado River Basin States Forum - California
• State: CA
• Basin: Western Slope
• Date: 5/1/1969
• Author: Myron B Holburt
• Title: Annual Report For the Calendar Year 1968
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

2.208

WATER QUALITY

The quality of water is degraded when used
for either irrigation or urban purposes. The
Lower Colorado River historically has had a
high content of dissolved minerals, even under
natural conditions. The continuing expansion of
Upper Basin water use over the next 20 to 30
vears will increase mineral concentration of the
\vater delivered to the California agencies with
resultant increase in the costs of its use for agri-
cultural and urban purposes and other detri-
mental effects. Being aware of this impending
condition of the river, the Board is working
with other basin states and the federal govern-
ment to assure that expansion of water use in
other states is accomplished in a manner that
will do the least damage to the quality of the
water in the river, and that specific programs
and works are developed to reduce the river's
dissolved mineral content. If successful, these
measures would lessen deterioration of the riv-
er's water that would otherwise cost California
users of Colorado River water millions of dollars
annually to correct.
A major portion of the Board's Colorado
River water quality activities is related to the
\Vater Quality Act of 1965 and its requirements
for the establishment of enforceable water qual-
itv standards for interstate rivers. Other activi-
ties include analyses related to the salinity of the
river at the International Boundarv and reviews
of reports pertaining to the river's 'water quality.

Water Quality Act of 1965

During 1968, efforts to complete the estab-
lishment of water quality standards for the Colo-
rado River were limited to temperature, biolog-
ical, and radiological criteria, with activities on
salinity standards being held in abeyance. This
action stemmed from the agreement reached by
the Colorado River Basin States to postpone the
establishment of standards for salinity at that
time. California agreed with the other basin
states that setting of a meaningful and enforce-
able standard could only be done after com-
pletion of the Federal Water Pollution Control

34

Administration and Bureau of Reclamation re-
ports which were then in progress.
The Federal officials finally agreed upon the
delay in setting salinity standards. In a letter
dated February 12, 1968, to the Temporary
Chairman, Colorado River Basin States Con-
ferees on \Vater Quality, Max Edwards, Assist-
ant Secretary of the Interior, stated:

. . . Although I am unable to provide you with
the final position that SeLtetaty Udall will take
on the question of setting mineral quality criteria,
I can aSsure )'ou that adoption of numerical
minerol quality criteria will not be required as a
condition of approval of Ihe water quality stand-
ards of the Basin states and thar the Secretary
does not intend to set Federal standards for salin.
ity at this time. Nevertheless, it is the intention
of the Secretary that Ihe Department of the In-
terior and the state pursue active programs to lay
the foundation for setting numerical criteria at
some future time . . .

Secretarv of the Interior Stewart Udall at the
hearings before the Subcommittee on Irrigation
and Reclamation of the Committee on Interior
and Insular Affairs of the House of Represent-
atives, on January 30, 1968, regatding water
quality standards, submitted the following state-
ment:

The Colorado River is the only major river of
the world that is virtually completely cOlltrolled.
\Vith the existing system of large storage reser-
voirs it is possible to plan, for all practical pur-
poses, on complete utilization of the river's runoff
with no utilizable water escaping to the sea. This
means that the limited water supply in the Colo-
rado River Basin must be used and re-used and
then used again for a \\~de variety of purposes.
In this complete utilization of runoff, the Colo-
rado Basin is unique.
The River is unique also with respect to the
number and extent of the institutional constraints
on the division and use of the Basin's water which
include an international treaty, two interstate
water compacts, Supreme Court decisions, Indian
water rights, State water laws, and Federal law.
These two aspects, in turn, make the problem
of setting numerical mineral quality standards for
the Colorado River not only unique but ex-
tremely complicated. Before discussing thjs prob-
lem further, I would like to state Ihat salinity