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DAILY SENTINEL OP-ED James S. Lochhead Executive Director Colorado Department of Natural Resources Recently, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced that the Bureau of Reclamation would soon issue draft regulations allowing interstate water banking in the Lower Colorado River Basin. This proposal -- together with some inaccurate press reports -- prompted some editorial writers to propose that Colorado sell or lease its unused entitlement to California or Nevada. In essence, their argument is that the lower states should pay for what they are now getting for free. At first blush, the argument is appealing. We could use the revenue for roads or schools, and politically powerful California might steal our water anyway. Fortunately, the Daily Sentinel got it right. The Sentinel saw this as a bad idea. It is akin to the kids selling off the family jewels to throw a party. In the long term, it would damage our economy and our environment. In 1922, a shrewd and principled Colorado lawyer named Delph Carpenter led the negotiation of the Colorado River Compact. This was an interstate agreement between the Upper Basin (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower Basin (Arizona, California and Nevada). Carpenter was afraid that the faster growing Lower Basin, principally California, would develop the River and claim its water before the Upper Basin even had the opportunity. So he sought protection under the Compact. The essence of the agreement was that the Upper Basin would not allow the flow of the Colorado River to drop below a specified amount -- 75 million acre feet over a running ten year average. In exchange, the Lower Basin agreed that the Upper Basin would have the right -- forever -- to develop whatever flow remained. In the meantime, the Compact requires Colorado and the other Upper Basin states to allow water we don't need to flow to the Lower Basin until we need it. This is the genius of the Compact. By requiring Colorado and its neighbors to send unused water to the Lower Basin at no cost for their immediate use, it continually reaffirms Colorado's right to claim that water in the future. Ifwe now try to extract money for that unused water -- even on a temporary lease basis -- ~ will be breaking the Compact that has stood for 75 years. We cannot sell or lease Colorado's share without losing the protections afforded by the Compact, including the protected right to use more of our share in the future. In fact, we would undoubtedly be forced to renegotiate the Compact. Is it worth giving up the benefits of the Compact -- selling the family jewels -- for some short-term profit? Consider the many benefits the Compact has provided Colorado for the last 75 years: