Clean Water Advocacy - Newsroom - AMSA in the News
Monday, December 16, 2002
Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton Addresses Colorado River Issues
'I Will Enforce Law of the River' Norton Tells Western Officials
Source: Speech at CRWUA annual meeting
If California does not live up to its part of a non-partisan, seven-state
agreement to reduce its use of Colorado River water by 2015, then the Secretary
of the Interior, as watermaster for the lower Colorado River, is required by law
to limit the state to 4.4 million acre feet of water from the Colorado River in
2003.
"If specific California agencies choose not to adopt agreements necessary for
the gradual, voluntary reductions contemplated under the plan developed by the
seven Colorado River Basin states, California will lose access to extra Colorado
River water," Norton told a meeting of Western water officials today. "The state
will be forced to live within its 4.4 million acre-feet apportionment from the
Colorado River beginning on Jan. 1, 2003."
California agreed to and helped craft the historic agreement on Colorado River
water use, which was negotiated and approved by former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt. The principal issue of the negotiations was how to achieve certainty
that California would actually reduce its overuse of the Colorado River.
The agreement is embodied in what is known as the Interim Surplus Guidelines,
which implements the Law of the Colorado River and an order of the United States
Supreme Court. After careful review when she took office, Norton endorsed the
agreement and decided to stay the course.
"We are at a turning point in the history of the Colorado River," Norton said in
her remarks to the Colorado River Water Users Association in Las Vegas, Nevada.
"Our common future is shaped by record drought and population growth within the
Colorado River Basin. These factors herald a new era of limits on Colorado River
water use--limits that shape the decisions that will guide the future course of
the river.
"While drought and population growth are causing change, what must not change is
our commitment to honor treaties, compacts, decrees and agreements. Otherwise
the legal foundation upon which this river is administered will be at risk,"
Norton said.