Summary
"There are questions that have just been out there that haven't been answered," says Jim Lochhead, an attorney in Glen wood Springs, Colo., who represents a consortium of Colorado cities and water districts. "It's getting to be about that time."
In July, the state of Colorado warned the Bureau of Land Management - which is currently preparing an environmental impact statement on [Pat Mulroy]'s Virgin and Muddy proposal - that it "believes that the Lower Basin, as a whole, has developed more 'Colorado River System' water than it is legally entitled to." It went on to say that it has "significant concerns about the development of any additional surface water supplies from the Colorado River or its tributaries in the Lower Basin."Instead, the Upper Basin states are quietly suggesting that Mulroy go after the Basin and Range groundwater rather than the Virgin and Muddy rivers. The groundwater project, in the words of Scott Balcomb, Colorado's lead negotiator, "would postpone indefinitely the need to fight over the shortage" on the Colorado River. But it would also put Mulroy right back at square one - pursuing a groundwater project that, at the earliest, won't be ready until five years after her current supplies are fully committed.See the full content of this document
Extract
'Tributary Issue' Could Force a Seven-State Showdown
Pat Mulroy has a problem: Las Vegas only has enough water to sustain its phenomenal rate of growth until 2013, and the Basin and Range groundwater project likely won't come online until at least five years after that.
To help bridge the gap, Mu...See the full content of this document
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