Click the link to read the editorial on The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website. Here’s an excerpt:
The general manager of the West Slope’s Colorado River District is calling out California for its meager water conservation plan, and he is right on. Andy Mueller made his comments in a memo to his district’s board of directors and during the board’s meeting earlier this month, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Dennis Webb. This was in response to an Oct. 5 letter by officials with California water entities using Colorado River water, which proposed conserving up to an additional 400,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead annually.
Mueller said in his memo, “California continues to take the position that it will do so only on a voluntary, temporary, compensated basis and that their participation is contingent upon the federal government paying their water users an acceptable level of compensation and the implementation of additional conservation measures from the other Basin States (including Colorado).”
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Frankly, every state is going to have to do more to solve this problem, but California should be stepping up the most. It’s the largest consumer of river water and the most distant from the headwaters, so it can have the biggest impact.
One area where we have a small disagreement with Mueller is around the idea of compensation for water users who make voluntary cuts…The idea of compensating Colorado River water users who cut their usage isn’t inherently bad.