Babbitt Praises California for Water Policy Progress

LAS VEGAS — Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on Friday praised the progress made in California toward using less water from the Colorado River and suggested that the other six states that depend on the river drop their historic distrust of their big neighbor to the west.

Specifically, Babbitt, in his annual state of the river speech to regional water officials, said he wants to see an agreement between the seven Western states on how to divvy up surplus water from the Colorado. The agreement could give water to California for the next 15 years as it implements a host of conservation strategies.

“What we need now is a burst of creative energy that can bring about seven-state consensus,” Babbitt told more than 1,000 officials attending the annual meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Assn. “I am determined to see this last central piece of the [Colorado River] puzzle put in place before my watch ends.”

Just how carnivorous Colorado River disputes can be was exemplified by a cardboard cutout brought to the convention by officials from the Coachella Valley Water District.

The cutout has a life-size human figure standing amid seven alligators.

The human, holding a briefcase above his head, has Babbitt’s face. And each alligator has the name of a state that depends on the Colorado River.

Babbitt joked about the “scurrilous caricature” of him, but added that the Colorado River in the past could easily have been named the River of Contention, for all the infighting.

In recent years, Southern California has used up to 800,000 acre-feet of water per year from the Colorado River--enough for 6 million people--more than its entitlement. Each year the Interior secretary must declare that there is surplus water available for California--always a politically tricky proposition. And Babbitt for years badgered California to be more judicious in its use.

Rather than relying on annual decisions, California would like new rules that would assure a continued supply of surplus water from the Colorado for at least the next 15 years, either directly from the river or from the massive Lake Mead reservoir behind Hoover Dam.

For decades, officials from the state Department of Water Resources and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have talked about such changes--only to be met with opposition from the six other states, which view California as a water hog that would virtually drain Lake Mead to provide water for desert agriculture and suburban sprawl.

But now the warring water agencies of Southern California have reached a landmark plan to reduce water use, share facilities, and adopt numerous water conservation plans, including a historic sale of water from the water-rich Imperial Valley to San Diego County.

In his speech, Babbitt gently urged officials in Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and Arizona to cut California some slack.

The Californians, Babbitt said, “have moved a huge distance in the past several years toward acknowledging the dramatic changes that need to be made. . . . [But] their ability to achieve those changes depends on an appreciation among the other [Colorado River] base states of the need for [more lenient] surplus guidelines.”

Babbitt pledged to issue such guidelines Dec. 7, just as the Clinton administration is ending.

As a matter of political practicality, however, any change in guidelines, such as altering the rules governing Lake Mead, must have the support of the seven states.

While a year of hardball negotiations lies ahead, there were indications at the convention that feelings toward California are warming.

Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Las Vegas-based Southern Nevada Water Authority, a hard-liner on matters involving California, said she was impressed by California’s conservation plans.

“For the first time,” Mulroy said Friday, “California is acknowledging that it has a responsibility to the larger [Colorado River] system and that the river is not just a faucet it can turn on to get cheap water.”

Still, Mulroy said the other states want assurances that California will not use surplus water to assist water-intensive desert agriculture. Also, any attempt to use Colorado River water to save the troubled Salton Sea will kill any chances for consensus, she said.