The battle over water has seemingly begun in earnest, here in Colorado, but at this point the fight does not yet involve military soldiers. The battle is being fought, instead, by lawyers and experts, and by elected and appointed officials, wearing suits and ties. The weapons employed are mainly rules and regulations — both existing and yet-to-be-developed.
For the mostly-rural communities located along the Colorado River and its major tributaries — the San Juan River, the Green River, the Yampa, the Little Colorado, the Gila — the battlefield may seem somewhat remote at the moment, perhaps even hypothetical. At the moment, the key conflict seems to be centered upon the enormous artificial reservoir located behind the Glen Canyon Dam — Lake Powell.
Here in Colorado, the battle has pitted the experts and lawyers and government officials from the Front Range — Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins — against the folks representing the Western Slope. The Front Range has plenty of population and economic clout, but not enough water to keep its lawns thoroughly watered, without the help of numerous reservoirs and pipelines that divert Colorado River water across the Continental Divide to the eastern half of the state.
Front Range communities are planning to extract even more water from Colorado River tributaries, thus adding to problems at Lake Powell. There are at least seven major new water storage and diversion projects planned in the state, that could divert a total of 400,000 acre-feet annually.
The Western Slope has plenty of water, at the moment, thanks to the Colorado River and its tributaries — but maybe not enough population or economic power to successfully win a war against Denver Water and the rest of the Front Range?
We’ll begin the story with a quote from a resolution presented to the Colorado Water Conservation Board just last month, by two Western Slope water districts.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) at its regular meeting held on September 19, 2018 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado that as a matter of state policy, the following principles apply to Colorado’s participation in a Demand Management Program:
1. The storage account in Lake Powell or other [Colorado River Storage Project Act] initial units must be available without charge, used for the purpose of storing water created by managing consumptive uses under a Demand Management Program, for the exclusive benefit of the Upper Division States to ensure compliance with Article III of the Colorado River Compact.
2. The Upper Division storage account must be exempt from coordinated operations between Lakes Mead and Powell. In other words, such an account should not be subject to equalization or balancing releases from Lake Powell.
3. Colorado’s contributions to the Demand Management Program will be generated exclusively through voluntary, temporary, and compensated contributions of water that was beneficially used under existing rights…
Terms that need definition:
Demand Management Program. Colorado River Compact. Storage Account. Coordinated Operations. Voluntary. Temporary. Compensated.
Some big ideas here. But just to be clear from the outset, the CWCB declined to consider this resolution at their September 19 meeting.
Here are a few of the complex problems at the root of a complex battle.
In 1922, the seven states dependent upon the water flowing through the Colorado River Basin — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California — signed the Colorado River Compact.
Under that agreement, the Upper Basin states agreed to allow at least 7.5 million acre feet of water to flow annually through the town of Lee’s Ferry, for ultimate use by the Lower Basin states. Unfortunately, the agreement was based on historically high water flows in the Colorado River that took place between 1906 and 1922. And unfortunately, the Lower Basin states have been using more than 7.5 million acres feet per year. More like 9 million.
Subsequent to the signing of the Colorado River Compact, the federal government — which was not party to the Compact — came up with the seemingly brilliant idea of building two monstrous water reservoirs. Lake Mead, completed in 1936, and Lake Powell, completed in 1963, were designed to store precious water and to generate low-cost electricity. About 5 billion kilowatt-hours of hydroelectric power are produced by Lake Powell’s Glen Canyon Dam, and the Western Area Power Administration distributes this electricity to Colorado and six other states at “cost-effective rates.” The total sales of the electricity produced is reportedly around $120 million annually, and the money is used partially to fund environmental programs.
Mead and Powell are the largest and second-largest reservoirs in the nation, respectively… except that, since 2013, Lake Mead has been smaller than Lake Powell. Over the past couple of decades, we’ve watched epic drought — combined with epic population growth and epic water use — paint a giant bathtub ring around Lake Mead. But Lake Powell has been shrinking, as well. The water elevation at Powell has dropped almost 100 feet since 2000, and a major cause has been annual water releases from Lake Powell to try and keep Lake Mead from sinking to an elevation of 1,075 feet — the point at which the federal government must declare a water shortage under a 2007 agreement. Such a declaration would cause mandatory water delivery cuts to the Lower Basin states, and would trigger widespread water rationing.
A new report by a team of science and policy experts, known as the Colorado River Research Group, claims that the annual releases of water from Lake Powell will ultimately compromise hydropower generation at Glen Canyon Dam. The current level of Lake Powell is about 3,625 feet above sea level. If the current drought in American Southwest continues, and if new water policies aren’t developed, Lake Powell might drop below 3,490 feet — the minimum level needed to generate electricity.
So we’re talking about two related problems. Water. And hydroelectricity.
Lake Powell is upstream of Lee’s Ferry, where the Colorado River Compact measurements take place. So the Lower Basin states can legally make demands on the water stored in Lake Powell, unless Colorado and the Upper Basin states can formulate an agreement to allow a ‘storage account’ in Lake Powell — a mathematical quantity of water, stored in the lake, that could not be accessed by the Lower Basin states without permission.
That’s one of the ideas recommended that the proposed September 19 CWCB Resolution:
2. The Upper Division storage account must be exempt from coordinated operations between Lakes Mead and Powell. In other words, such an account should not be subject to equalization or balancing releases from Lake Powell.
As noted, the Colorado Water Conservation Board declined to vote on this resolution.
Meanwhile, a continuing drought and continuing population growth could potentially touch off a “compact call” by the Lower Basin states — triggering negotiations that could subject the Upper Basin states to water rationing.
Would that be voluntary water rationing? Or mandatory water rationing?
Could we end up draining Lake Powell completely? And then what?