Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Alex Hager). Here’s an excerpt:
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton said there were some common threads in the feedback her agency received.
“There’s consensus that there needs to be an ability to operate the system more sustainably for the future, that hydrology may lead to drier conditions, and that there needs to be an understanding between supply and demand,” Touton said.
How exactly to bridge that supply-demand gap, though, is the existential question of ongoing river negotiations. State leaders are reluctant to volunteer major water cutbacks, trying to soften the blow that could be dealt to growing cities and agricultural economies if new reductions are rolled out. That’s left them mired in a standoff about how to proceed. For example, in a letter from the Upper Colorado River Commission – a group representing Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico – leaders outlined a list of priorities. The first of those points the finger at other states further downstream, saying that Reclamation’s new rules should address the supply and demand gap and “will require permanent Lower Basin reductions under most if not all operating conditions.”
Other letters, signed by state and agricultural leaders in the Lower Basin, say that post-2026 rules need to comply with the “Law of the River,” a longstanding collection of legal agreements that gives preference to the West’s oldest water users, many of whom operate in the Lower Basin.
Elizabeth Koebele, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been reviewing the comments submitted to Reclamation.
“It’s unsurprising that the vast majority of the calls for action and letters describing potential action are focused on changes in the Lower Basin,” she said. “I think there’s a real strong focus on ‘let’s get the Lower Basin’s house in order, and then we can focus on the rest of the system.’”
