Stretching the Colorado River

You can only stretch a river so far, and The Colorado river which serves as a water source to seven states including parts of Mexico, has possibly reached its temporary breaking point.  The Colorado River is responsible for filling both Lake Mead and Lake Powell.  In response to the recently released report from the Bureau of Reclamation's anticipated 24 month study, the agency is looking to cut water realeased from Lake Powell's Glen Canyon Dam by a staggering 750,000 acre feet which averages out to serving approximately 1.5 million homes.  It is the first time in in the history of that dam that water heading downstream will be cut.  This shortage has raised concern for municipalities, agricultural communities as well as environmentalist groups concerned for the fish and wildlife habbitats that will be directly affected.

Currently, Las Vegas Nevada has 2 'straws' in Lake Mead, which is approximately 300 miles from Lake Powell, in order to provide enough water for the city's ever growing urban population.  At this time officials are already having to consider drawing from deeper in the reservoir to avoid price hikes and shortages on water for surrounding municipalities.  Brad Udall from the University of Colorado's Law School, explains how, "Something very, very unusual is going on." With the combination of a staggering drought and increased demands, an incredible 8.23 million acre feet of water is supposed to reach Lake Mead and Powell each year in order to serve Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico.  "Basically, Mead has lost the equivalent of one entire year's worth of flow." Udall explained, "It's missing 8 million acre feet of water."  In addition to this frightening statistic, Lake Powell is also missing a years worth of water, an estimated 15 million acre feet.  So, while the drought rages on, many states in the west will spend the winter praying for heavy wet snow and rain to hopefully buffer this rather remarkable shortage.  Time to rapidly preform a dozen snow dances, no time to waste here folks. 

Photo: Compliments of National Geographic

Colorado Governor-speak

Judson Harmon

At the Summer meeting of the Colorado Water Congress, both Govenor candidates made remarks on the state's water issues.  Democrat candidate John Hickenlooper directed his comments mostly toward water conservation - suggesting that reducing current uses was the best way to extend current supplies.  But it was Republican candidate Dan Maes who took the additional storage position.  He said:  “If it starts in Colorado, it's our water. The question is how do we keep it here,” and “We need to store as much of our water in the state as possible.”

This mind-set harkens back to the old Harmon Doctrine that held water sovereignty for any state or country.  While Attorney General Judson Harmon, in 1895, did opine that waters of the Rio Grande were sovereign to the US, this doctrine was legally questioned as early as 1897, and has never really been held to by the U.S. Government.

As such, most would say that Colorado Governor candidate Maes' remarks are likely more rhetoric than an implementable state policy.  It's also possible that the comments were taken out of context, or not completely covered in the news article this post is based on.  In any event, Alex Basilevski (Environmental Department of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel in Philadelphia) did a blog on this doctrine earlier in regard to Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue's similar statements.  Link:  Harmon Doctrine.  As always, this will be an interesting issue to follow along on.

Colorado Water Law - Chapter 3 Review

This has been the best chapter yet.  It is titled "Water Law Basics" and does indeed cover the basics of the riparian doctrine of water law and the prior approriation doctrine - both very important water law-isms in the West.  I particularly liked the tweaks and developments of the water law suggested by the authors based on changes in mining technologies over the formative years of the law.  I was disappointed when I came to the end of the chapter just as the modern times (1960's) were being introduced.  But was relieved to read that they were going to be picked back up in later chapters.

While the chapter notes and references are not exhaustive, they are clearly sufficient  to provide new sources of information to anyone wanting to know more.  Anyway, now that I know that "usufructory" is not dirty word, it's on to chapter 4!

Colorado Water Law for Non-Lawyers

Well, I promised a book review and I always deliver.  The book "Colorado Water Law for Non-Lawyers" was written by P. Andrew Jones and Tom Cech.  Mr. Jones is an attorney for the law firm of Lind, Lawrence and Ottenhoff, LLC and Mr. Cech is the Executive Director for the Central Colorado Water Conservancy District.  Both have long and storied careers in water - both ground and surface.  Since I'm still reading the book, I'll take the review chapter by chapter, so stay tuned.

Chapter 1:  Colorado Climate, Geology and Hydrology.  This chapter is very well written at a moderate level of detail - telling the reader far more than they likely already know, but not bogging them down trying to tell everything the authors know.  It covers the geology and climate in such a way that the hydrology - both ground and surface water - all of a sudden makes perfect sense.  They sort of start at the top with the central mountain region and trace everything downstream (East and West) precisely as a melting snowflake would see things.  I didn't know that Colorado had more 14'ers (14,000 ft+ peaks) than all other states combined - 53 of them.  The maps and figures provided are very well done and very on-point.  I especially liked the maps showing each of the 5 major river basins draining the state - the South Platte, Arkansas, Colorado, Rio Grande and White/Yampa.  The sidebars are also very interesting, but there being 13 of them, they tended to interfere with my reading continuity - maybe that's just me, though.  Finally, there is no shortage of numbers thrown at you - from precipitation to elevations to distances to discharges - whew!  I'm glad this is casual reading for me and there'll be no test given.  All-in-all a very enjoyable and fact filled first chapter!  More to come.