WSP06117

• File Number: 8583
• Description: Rio Grande Decision Support System
• State: CO
• Basin: Rio Grande
• Water Division: 3
• Date: 1/1/1988
• Author: Steven J. Shupe & Jo
• Title: The Upper Rio Grande: A Guide To Decision-Making
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

C 0 ll..4 R

spawning times in the Rio Chama.
The Bureau of Land Management
and the New Mexico State Engineer
negotiated an instream flow water
right for the Red River, though the
agreement was rejected by the fed-
eral court. Local acequia associa-
tions have negotiated reservoir
release rates with the Army Corps
of Engineers, The City of Albuquer-
que has negotiated with the Middle
Rio Grande Conservancy District to
shift the location of water storage,
River rafting groups have worked
with the Bureau of Reclamation and
others to create instream flows for
recreation at certain times of year.
And Indian Pueblos have
negotiated with the Department of
Interior to protect their access to
water and alter water management
policies of the Bureau of Reela,
mation.

The system has some flexibility to
respond to pressures for change,
but there is as yet no forum for con-
sideration of the future of the river.
That is not surprising, The laws and
institutions created to date have
aimed to meet specific needs of the
states, the cities, the major irriga-
tion districts and Mexico. The system

51

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types of environmental and natural
resource policy positions. Media-
tion of site specific disputes, policy
dialogue and negotiation, regula-
tory negotiation and other forms of
professionally assisted problem-
solving efforts may prove helpful,
as well as informal negotiations
without the aid of intermediaries.
The examples of negotiated solu,
tions cited in this handbook testify
to the fact that such an approach
can work to deal with special cir-
cumstances. It may also be timely to
use processes of dialogue and
negotiation to look at broader
issues about the future of the upper
basin and the ways in which water
users and managers can improve
relationships, Such dialogue would
aim not at a victory by one side over
another but at an integrated
approach to river management that
would enable all water users to
meet their needs in the coming
decades,

"

is what it was designed to be, no more
and no less, The reality is that the
upper Rio Grande has no broad-
based policy, making body because
there has been no sustained pres-
sure to create one.

It may be possible to find new
approaches to integrate the needs
of tribes, small farmers, environ-
mentalists, recreationists, and other
groups, just as such needs came to
be recognized and incorporated in
decision-making in the Columbia
basin when the Northwest Power
Planning Act was adopted for that
region in 1980, The form of any new
approach will be different from
what has been useful in the North-
west and will have to be shaped
within the Rio Grande region, not
in Washington, D,C

In order to find out what
approaches might be workable,
there is a need for dialogue among
the different constituencies and
water agencies to elarify exactly
those interests that can and cannot
be accommodated under existing
law. There are available several
forms of productive interaction that
have been tested in relation to many

The key, then, is to create a process
for the future, a way in which dif-
ferent interests can engage each
other productively and negotiate
new arrangements.

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Glrefully regulated, the river south of Hatch, New Mexico, irrigates highly productive agricultural fields, PHaro BY PAUL WGSDON,