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WSP07921
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Last modified
1/26/2010 2:29:25 PM
Creation date
10/12/2006 2:40:24 AM
Metadata
Fields
Template:
Water Supply Protection
File Number
8543.200
Description
Projects in the Closed Basin
State
CO
Basin
Rio Grande
Water Division
3
Date
8/3/1989
Title
Western Resources Wrap-Up
Water Supply Pro - Doc Type
Project Overview
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<br />\;- <br /> <br />WEST'"' RESOURe", ~,-/{' 4A <br />Series If.x.:VII, NO. 31 ~,,"...\J ~t-O~ <br />~te: 8-3":'-~-", ;!A_~ <br />osed Basin project, other . ..~~ <br />groundwater developments, ~ <br />GW Series #4, ps. 1-5 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />" <br /> <br />From: Helene C. Monberg <br />123 Sixth Street Southeast <br />WaShington, D,C., 20003 <br />Area Code 202-546-1350-1 <br /> <br />Washington--The $100 million Closed Basin groundwater project in <br />Colorado is moving into its final construction stages, with $7.5 mil- <br />lion voted by the House on June 28 and by the Senate on July 27 (in HR <br />2696) to fund this unique reclamation project during fiscal 1990. <br />The Closed Basin project is an anomaly. Even tho Chairman George <br />Miller, D-Calif., of the House Water and Power Resources Subcommittee <br />is generally opposed to use of groundwater to solve surface water <br />problems, he pushed enactment of a bill last year which increased the <br />ceiling on the project from about $75 million to $94 million in <br />federal funding, adding new cost-sharing provisions (P.L. 100-516). <br />The Closed Basin project was authorized in 1972 (P.L. 92-514) to <br />solve Colorado's water deficit with New Mexico and Texas under the <br />1938 Rio Grande Compact. Testimony before the Miller Subcommittee last <br />year indicated New Mexico claimed Colorado was in debt to New Mexico <br />and Texas by 944,400 acre-feet of water on the Rio Grande by the end <br />of 1967. New Mexico and Texas sued Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court <br />(SCOTUS) in 1966, but action in SCOTUS was stayed in 1968 by consent <br />of the parties after Colorado obligated herself not to incur more <br />deficits in the future. Her response was the Closed Basin project, <br />authorized by Congress in 1972. It directed the Bureau of Reclamation <br />(Bu/Rec) to salvage about 100,800 acre-feet of groundwater annually <br />evaporating from the Closed Basin within Southern Colorado's San Luis <br />Valley by building a system of 170 wells, pipelines and a 42-mile <br />conveyance channel from the Closed Basin to the Rio Grande to meet <br />Colorado's commitment to its Lower Basin neighbors under the Rio <br />Grande Compact and the U.S. commitment to Mexico under the 1906 Rio <br />Grande Treaty, 60,000 acre-feet of water annually. In the mid-1980's, <br />from 1985-87, water spilled three times at New Mexico's Elephant Butte <br />Dam on the Rio Grande, thereby wiping out Colorado's deficit, as <br />provided under the compact. <br />Closed Basin project construction finally got underway in 1981 <br />and has continued at a measured pace, even tho several Colorado <br />environmentalists testified at last year's hearings that the original <br />purpose for the project--ending Colorado's deficit on the Rio Grande <br />--no longer exists. project supporters have told Western Resources <br />Wrap-up (WRWl their project probably could not be authorized today in <br />light of recent spills at Elephant Butte Dam. <br />The project was authorized in 1972 without any repayment or <br />cost-sharing provisions because of Colorado's interstate obligations <br />to the downstream states and the U.S. treaty obligation to Mexico on <br />the Rio Grande. Objections raised by Miller, Sen. Bill Bradley, D- <br />N.J., of the Senate Water and Power Subcommittee and others changed <br />that. The 1988 law required the state of Colorado to enter into a <br />cost-sharing agreement with the feds. (more) <br /> <br />---------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />---------------------------------------------------------------------- <br /> <br />This is the fourth article in a groundwater series running in WRW, tho <br />not consecutively. HCM-WRW <br /> <br />r~.n,~r'o. <br />,_, ,. t <br />~ '_ ",,-, t--. \,J <br />
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