From 8NewsNow.com (Nathan Baca):
The U.S. Interior Secretary told water agency chiefs in Las Vegas how happy she is to see them getting along…
New Interior Secretary Sally Jewell spoke to the Colorado River Water Users Association at Caesars Palace Friday morning. The group is made of water agencies from most western states. She told the group she is happy to see that politics is not getting in the way of state governments talking about sharing dwindling water resources.
Secretary Jewell says it’s because the talk about climate change reached a new level.
“The debate about whether it is going on is over. The president’s climate action plan, which he released in June, was very helpful to all of us. He put a stake in the ground and he said, ‘this is how we’re going to go forward.’ He charged people like me with being part of the solution and prepare our landscapes. That is where we’re going. We’re moving on from the debate and into the solution,” Secretary Jewell said.
The secretary said that even with an average year of rain and snow along the Colorado River, reservoir levels will keep going down. Lake Mead’s level is expected to go down between eight and 30 feet within months. That would trigger a state of emergency forcing all agencies to cut water use by 4 percent…
A majority of the people managing major water facilities are nearing or even past retirement age. There is a fear of a talent drain, if the Interior Department doesn’t find qualified employees soon.
Here’s a statement from McCrystie Adams and Earth Justice about Secretary Jewell’s speech at the conference:
McCrystie Adams, staff attorney for the Rocky Mountain Office of Earthjustice, issued the following statement today regarding the future of the Colorado River:
“A business-as-usual response to the current crisis, while potentially resolving disputes between those who take water out of the river, does nothing to ensure a better future and a living river.
“A more sustainable future for the Colorado River will require a fundamentally different approach to river management and water supply. Smart water planning means more than carefully dividing up flows—it means valuing living, flowing rivers and the natural systems that depend upon them as much as municipal and agricultural water. It means embracing water conservation, recycling, and re-use. We urge the Secretary and all of those who depend on the Colorado River to ensure that the river is a keystone of our future and not a relic of our past.”
The Colorado River is the foundation of natural systems—fish, wildlife and entire ecosystems—across a wide swath of the west. For a century, these important resources and the human communities that depend on them have taken a back seat to the drive to capture water for our growing cities. Now, with flows dropping and its natural rhythm disrupted, the river itself is endangered. This is painfully apparent through the struggle for survival of the river’s few remaining native fish.
From Fronteras (Laurel Morales):
The Colorado River Water Users Association met in Las Vegas this week to discuss how to deal with some of the lowest water levels on record. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell spoke to the group Friday.
The theme of the Interior Secretary’s speech was constrained resources — a tight budget and the resource on everyone’s mind, water. Despite financial constraints, Jewell said her agency is committed to providing scientific research for innovative conservation and incentive grants.
“Climate models and droughts of this magnitude and worse are going to be more common in the Southwest for decades to come,” Jewell said. “And yet I don’t think we’re ready to pack up, shut down Las Vegas, shut down our farms and start to import what we eat. We’ve got to work together.”
She mentioned the collaborative effort to make a deal with Mexico known as Minute 319 and the tribal partners working on water solutions.
While Jewell did not lay out specific conservation examples to deal with the impending water shortage, environmentalists are quick to point to water recycling and water banking.
Jewell discussed another critical issue — a massive turnover of Bureau of Reclamation staff. More than 50 percent of department employees are eligible to retire in the next five years.