Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Daily News website (Austin Corona). Here’s an excerpt:
March 8, 2024
Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s interstate representative on the river, has said the subject of Upper Basin cuts is “untenable and also impossible.” Mitchell has said that the Lower Basin is responsible for declining water levels in the reservoirs.
“The Upper Basin states have used about 3 to 4 million acre-feet less than their apportionment when at times the Lower Basin has used 3 to 4 million more than their apportionment,” Mitchell said during a Feb. 15 information session. “I think one of the first steps before discussing shared shortages is for all in the basin to use only what they’re legally entitled to.”
Mitchell said that while Lower Basin states can rely on Powell and Mead for their water supplies, Upper Basin states can only rely on natural precipitation, meaning less certainty and more frequent times of shortage. The Lower Basin’s proposal includes reduced releases from Lake Powell based on Upper Basin hydrological shortages, meaning in theory that the Lower Basin could see shortages from precipitation just as the Upper Basin does.
Upper Basin water cuts have never occurred before, and the legality and structure of such cuts is unclear. During the 2023 Colorado Water Congress in Steamboat Springs, Denver attorney David Robbins, who is one of Colorado’s alternate representatives on interstate river matters, argued that it would take “a tremendous amount of litigation” for the federal government to exercise authority over Colorado’s water use as it does in the Lower Basin.
