Reimagining the Colorado Basin - Decision Time
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Friends of Confluence West –
[Update: Post-last month, the negotiation posturing has begun. As of this writing, not looking good.]
Often, conferences go like this: You listen to some interesting people, hang out at the bar, shake hands/bump elbows and go home to even bigger piles of work.
Last month's historic Getches-Wilkinson Colorado Basin conference was different – a perilous elephant in the room thoroughly outed. The United States Department of Interior told the seven Basin states that 2-4MAF in cuts need to be made ASAP, or the federal government would make those cuts for them. These unprecedented, jaw-dropping federal fiats were announced just a few days before the conference started.
The federal representatives added that as these cuts are made, the interests and needs of the Basin's 30 sovereign nations, along with water for the environment and agriculture, must also be factored in.
Two to four million acre-feet out of a total average annual flow of 12 million AF? The first day of the conference was, to say the least, gloomy.
Jim Prairie, Reclamation's Upper Basin modeling lead, and Jeff Lukas, Lukas Climate Research, (and Confluence West colleague) significantly piled on to that gloom, in their opening panel: What does the Climate Science Suggest for Short- and Long-term?
You can hear their presentations on the conference recording. To summarize – their short answer to the panel title was: We knew we were fu**ed – but we now know we are so very much more fu**ed than we ever thought possible.
A switch in outlook came towards the end of the conference's second day. As Doug Kenney, the now-retired Director of the Colorado River Research Group, (and Confluence West colleague) said in introducing the panel, Next Generation Voices (aka the 'young guns'), "Yesterday, we heard about the Basin being driven into the ditch. Now, we're going to talk about how to get the Basin out of the ditch."
The opportunity is to finally manage the Basin as one river with no more artificial ‘Upper Basin’ and ‘Lower Basin.’
"Crisis as opportunity" was the theme of this last panel. The opportunity is to now finally manage the Basin as one river with no more artificial ‘Upper Basin’ and ‘Lower Basin.’ Panelists further noted that the new management structure needs to find a way to include diverse stakeholder decision-making – not just stakeholder 'engagement.'
A few panelists noted that while the seven Basin states' principals have been – commendably - collaborating over the past decade, they added that "consensus is the lack of leadership." Sarah Porterfield with Trout Unlimited made one of the smartest comments of the two days: "This [Colorado Basin management] a human relationship problem, not a legal problem."
I asked one of the final questions "What happens if the states can't come to an agreement, and the Department of Interior decides for them?" After about 15 seconds of dead silence in the room, the response was, "The states wouldn't be happy - but they'd secretly be relieved."
The conference recording is now online.
For the West,