From Deseret News archives:
7 states sign historic water agreement
Compact apportions Colorado River, aims to ease drought risk
Don Ostler, whose four-state commission is based in Salt Lake City, was present in Las Vegas to see the agreement signed by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and representatives of all states in the Colorado River Compact. The compact apportions water among the seven states using the river: Utah, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming.
"It's without a doubt the most significant agreement on the Colorado River since the original agreement (the Colorado River Compact) was signed ... in 1922," Ostler said.
Adjustments have been made to the agreement in the past 85 years, but they weren't as significant as this, he said. "So yes, it's been a historic, exciting" time.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agreement provides that:
• Specific water levels of Lake Mead, which is in Nevada and Arizona, will be used to determine when a shortage is declared for the Lower Basin states Arizona, California and Nevada. By shortage, the agreement means less than 7.5 million acre-feet available for those states.
• A mechanism will be set up to encourage and account for augmenting and conserving water supplies in Lake Mead to "minimize the likelihood and severity of potential future water shortages and to provide additional flexibility to meet water use needs, particularly under low reservoir conditions."
• Interim surplus guidelines established in 2001 are "modified and extended through 2026."
In prepared comments released by the Interior Department, Kempthorne said drought conditions in America and around the world threaten to worsen. "Here in the West, for example, runoff in five of the seven Colorado River Basin states is projected to decline by more than 15 percent during the 21st century."
If the region becomes warmer and evaporation increases, "we could face a situation in which the amount of precipitation we are receiving today produces significantly less runoff in the future."
Recent comments
Uh-oh!
Here come the water wars!
Anonymous | Dec. 14, 2007 at 5:33 p.m.
The suggestion that "nobody" in Utah uses Colorado River water has...
WP | Dec. 14, 2007 at 5:09 p.m.
All I care is that the reservoirs fill to capacity. They are much...
Fill the reservoirs! | Dec. 14, 2007 at 12:16 p.m.
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