SerpApi.Org
The federal government intends to send $100 million to Colorado and three other states to pay farmers, ranchers and cities to voluntarily use less Colorado River water, state officials said. However, the program still lacks specifics on how much water it will save or how the money will be divided.
The Bureau of Reclamation would split the funding among the four Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — under what officials are calling a "near-term contribution program." The Colorado Water Conservation Board would run Colorado's portion.
Nothing has been signed yet, according to Amy Ostdiek, a section chief with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
"We have heard from Reclamation that they do certainly intend to grant that $100 million to the upper division states," Ostdiek said. "So we're kind of counting on it."
Ostdiek said the water conserved under the program would benefit the Upper Basin.
"Essentially, that is not just flowing downstream to the Lower Basin, but rather it is being used to the credit of the Upper Basin to build resiliency," she said.
The saved water would be credited to Colorado and the other Upper Basin states and stored in reservoirs including Lake Powell or Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado, Ostdiek said.
Colorado has paid water users to conserve before, including through the System Conservation Pilot Program, but officials have said that water was never tracked once it left the state. Ostdiek said this program would mark a change.
"It would be the first time that there's a contribution conservation program established," she said, referring to a formal system for accounting for and crediting the saved water to the Upper Basin states.
However, several major questions remain unresolved. States will have to account for how much water is saved and by whom. It is not yet clear how the $100 million will be divided among the four states, or how much water Colorado itself will be able to conserve.
Ostdiek said that amount will depend heavily on hydrology, particularly in a year as dry as this one.
"The way that we conserve water looks a little bit different up here," she said. "In wetter years, we'll have more water to conserve. In dry years like this, I don't know how many water rights holders will have water that they can contribute to a program like this, to be honest."
The program comes as the seven states that rely on the Colorado River remain locked in negotiations over new operating rules for the river's two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The current guidelines expire at the end of September, and the states have blown past several deadlines without reaching an agreement.
Ostdiek said the conservation program is separate from those negotiations, but would run parallel to it. Reclamation must formally commit the $100 million by the end of September, the same month the existing river operating rules expire.
If the seven states fail to reach a deal on new operating rules by then, the federal government has said it will step in to administer the rules governing the river.
