SUMMIT COUNTY — Colorado River Water Conservation District member Tom Long is fairly confident that seven states — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, California, Nevada and Arizona — will be able to create a drought-management plan by April 1, as demanded last month by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

If they don’t, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton will. And it’s likely that will involve reducing water delivery to California, Nevada and Arizona as early as 2006, if drought conditions don’t improve.

The first cut would be to the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile canal that serves Phoenix and Tucson.

And even if the seven states are able to draft a plan, it still doesn’t preclude the possibility the lower states could place a call on the Colorado River and drain Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs in Summit County.

“The secretary of the Interior has to administer it, and the junior (right holders) will go first,” Long said. “The first will be Dillon.”

Long, who also sits on the Summit County Board of County Commissioners, said the problem could be mitigated as more people in the West realize the severity of drought conditions in the past five years.

“The states of California, Arizona and Nevada have basically placed their heads in the sand for the last three or four years while the drought has greatly affected those of us in the upper basin states,” he said.

“Everyone has been screaming for the lower basin states to get on some kind of drought management plan,” Long said. “I think they’re becoming aware. We will see a drought management plan come out of the lower basin — finally.”

Under the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the upper basin states are required to supply the lower basin states with 7.5 million acre feet of water per year. An acre foot is the amount of water it would take to cover an acre to the depth of one foot, or enough to provide a family of four for a year.

At the time the compact was written, most experts believed the river generated more than 16 million acre feet of water each year. Now, however, experts say the river generates just 13 million to 13.5 million acre-feet on average.

“They have gone and used their 7.5 million acre feet like we can make it,” Long said. “They’ve ignored reality.”

And they’re growing.

For example, Phoenix is home to 1.81 million residents — not including those who live in the 22 cities surrounding it. According to the 2000 census, the surrounding county was the fourth-fastest growing county in the country.

“Phoenix,” Long scoffed. “You haven’t seen sprawl until you’ve seen Phoenix. You haven’t seen traffic gridlock. You haven’t seen anything yet. That place is nuts. And we’ve been dealing with drought plans at the upper end for how many years now? Since 2002.”

Long thinks it’s possible to develop such plans.

“There’s still a certain amount of thinking that if they ignore it, it will go away,” he said. “But they should be able to do it.”

He cited Colorado’s success in reducing water use as an example. Water users have done everything from reusing gray water to rationing to cutting back on consumption.

Long thinks the lower basin states could easily cut back their usage by rationing, lining canals and bringing into the system water that currently bypasses it.

It will be crucial, particularly if drought strikes again next year.
Currently, Lake Powell is 36 percent full, Lake Mead is 55 percent full, and the reservoirs that feed those from the upper river average 66 percent full, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.

If the drought should ease — and no one except perhaps the Farmer’s Almanac is making any predictions — conditions would have to be wetter than usual for several years before reservoirs refilled, Long said.

Snowpack is critical to the amount of runoff the West will see next spring, as 80 percent of it returns to the rivers as water.

Currently, the Colorado River Basin is at 90 percent of average for snowpack, according to the National Resources Conservation Service.

Jane Stebbins can be reached at (970) 668-3998, ext. 228, or at jstebbins@summitdaily.com.