Colorado River negotiations protect Wyo development prospects, he says
BRODIE FARQUHAR Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:00 am
The new year is looking a whole lot better than 2005 for Wyoming State Engineer Patrick Tyrrell.
Not only are the state's mountain ranges receiving above-average snowfall, but Tyrrell just returned from encouraging negotiations last week in Las Vegas over the contentious Colorado River Compact.
The specter of all-out legal combat over the basin's strained water supply is much diminished, he said, as the seven states n including Wyoming n have hammered out a tentative new agreement they can take to the U.S. Interior secretary for approval.
The upper basin states - Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico - plus California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower Colorado River basin have reached tentative agreement on how water will be managed in time of shortages.
"We all got some protections," said Tyrrell, Wyoming's representative to compact negotiations. He declined to give further details until he briefs Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
Tyrrell did say Wyoming's future development opportunities are protected under this plan.
Pressure to come up with an agreement came from Interior Secretary Gale Norton late in 2004, when she insisted that the seven basin states come up with a joint proposal for an ongoing federal environmental impact study that will determine shortage criteria for the river. Failure to do so, Norton warned, would result in a federal operating plan and implicitly, a full-scale courtroom war between the upper and lower basins. Norton gave the states a Feb. 2, 2006, deadline.
"In general, there's a heightened sense of litigation being staved off for awhile," Tyrrell said. All seven states have to take the framework of the agreement back to their governors and legislative leaders for approval.
Many, many details have yet to be worked out.
Other than an agreement among the states to support water development projects in the basin, there was no offer by lower basin states to help financially with upper-state water projects.
"I'm not sure we want other fingers in that pie," Tyrrell said. Any time other states get involved financially, they want to call the shots, he said.
In general terms, the tentative agreement extends to 2025 and will:
* Coordinate operations of Lake Powell in the upper basin and Lake Mead in the lower basin n all to make sure that neither suffers at the expense of the other, Tyrrell said. In the nitty-gritty, that would mean than when Powell's water level is up and Mead's is low, the upper basin states can release additional water - beyond the yearly 8.23 million acre feet the upper basin states are committed to provide. Lower basin states will take less than the 8.23 million acre feet if Mead is up and Powell is down.
* Settle shortages of water for Arizona, should Lake Mead dip to a certain water level n several hundred thousand acre feet, and more if the water level continues to decline.
* Provide a "bridge" water supply for fast-growing Nevada to take more Colorado River water as it develops groundwater resources over the next decade.
"I think the long-range solution, over the next 15-20 years, is major augmentation of water supplies for the lower basin, not only in conservation measures, but desalinization of salt water and even reuse of wastewater," Tyrrell said.
Although there have been no dramatic breakthroughs on technology and costs, Tyrrell said, there have been steady, incremental improvements.