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Posted on 08/16/2008 4:08:32 PM PDT by kms61
Water experts of all stripes were left questioning the prudence of Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain after he told a newspaper the critical 1922 water compact between seven Western states should be revisited.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt the major, major issue is water and can be as important as oil. So the compact that is in effect, obviously, needs to be renegotiated over time amongst the interested parties,” McCain told The Pueblo Chieftain. “I think that there’s a movement amongst the governors to try, if not, quote, renegotiate, certainly adjust to the new realities of high growth, of greater demands on a scarcer resource.”
The Colorado River Compact governs how seven Western states, including Colorado and Arizona, share the Colorado River.
“Conditions have changed dramatically,” McCain said, while noting that he was not necessarily supporting a mandatory reopening of the issue.
Doug Kemper, executive director of the Colorado Water Congress, said there has already been dialogue between Western governors about how to implement the compact. Reopening the compact, Kemper said, is another issue entirely.
“I believe our board would be strongly opposed to reopening the compact,” Kemper said. “We believe that this was something that was negotiated and we’ve relied on for our water-supply planning.”
John Redifer, a member of the Colorado Water Conservation Board and political science professor at Mesa State College, said McCain’s position makes sense in light of Arizona’s needs, but not as a national policy.
“I wonder if he is running for president of the United States or for something in Arizona when he makes those statements,” Redifer said. “I’m really kind of surprised that someone running for president … that needs to carry the state of Colorado would make a statement like that.”
Colorado’s statesmen also questioned McCain’s plan, with Congressman John Salazar, D-Colo., saying he is “totally disappointed in McCain.”
Salazar, via his spokesman, Eric Wortman, pledged to fight McCain’s plan.
“Over my cold, dead, political carcass,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said.
“The compact is the only protection Colorado has from several more politically powerful downstream states,” Schaffer added. “Opening it for renegotiation would be the equivalent of a lamb discussing with a pack of wolves what should be on the dinner menu.”
Tom Kise, the McCain campaign’s Colorado spokesman, said McCain was not proposing that the 2007 agreement be reopened or any immediate talks on the compact.
“He’s talking about ongoing conversations, conversations that happen this year, next year, 10, 20, 30 years down the road,” Kise said.
Kise said McCain knows global warming is changing water conditions in the West, and that means the states need to talk. “As long as water is going to be an issue in the West, there should be an open conversation among all parties,” Kise said.
McCain has never done anything for Arizona.
It's a perfectly reasonable, logical statement.
It's a 1922 agreement fercryin' outloud. Don't ya think there are more demands for water some 90 years later????
And I’m an idiot for not reading closely enough...
Not a good move for sure. I don’t know how much people are paying attention at the moment but it is an issue the Democrats can use to their advantage. Water rights is one of the most complex issues in the West. McCain should have kept his mouth shut.
I think we have enough lying, cheatin, thieving politicians.
Having said that, I have no use for McCain for many other reasons, but he does say what he thinks.
Mccain's people are clueless about the West and about the climate as well.
It’s a Catch 22. I don’t like politicians who obfuscate, either, but raw honesty isn’t going win elections, and if you don’t win, you can’t implement your policies. I don’t have an answer.
Global Warming? Will this nonsense never stop?!?!
Look at what happens with all these litmus tests. They simply lie. Then it's big surprise when elected, but somehow I am never surprised anymore, and when they lie about one thing, it's like a single cockroach. There is always 100 more.
They lie because they must?????
If that is true, then we are the guilty party who asked them to do it, and then attack them for lying about something we disagree with.
That is pretty sad.
That McCain, always the Maverick. Maybe we should renegotiate the US Constitution? No wait, Juan already did! What a guy! Maybe sanity will descend on the RINO convention? Nah, go with throttle up!
There’s still plenty of time for McCain to issue a clarification statement on what is a very complex issue, if one is needed.
I don’t see this hurting him too much.
The idiot! The issue has nothing to do with "global warming".
What it has to do with is:
1. A compact that was negotiated in 1922.
2. A compact that apportioned water based on a faulty estimate of the waterflow at the point of allocation (the Arizona-Utah border). The waterflow was significantly over-estimated, based on the immediately preceding "wet years".
3. A compact dependent upon an allocation formula determined before there was a Glen Canyon Dam. The Glen Canyon dam greatly reduced the amount of waterflow at the Utah-Arizona border just downstream -- because the porous sandstone cliffs that surround it sop up water like a sponge and its wide expanse (coupled with a hot, dry climate) results in massive evaporation.
The simple fact is that there simply isn't as much water available for allocation to the downstream states (Arizona, California and Nevada) as everybody thought there was when the compact was negotiated and signed.
McCain is dead right on this one: the compact should be re-negotiated...but not because of this "global warming" tripe.
Water is the next OIL. Potable water is precious. Anyone who says different is selling something.
Further, we don’t really think Colorado was going McCain, do we? Dare I say BOULDER?
I understand the issue completely. I just don’t think McCain was out of line for saying dialogue should continue.
Northern Calif has the valley next to Yosemite (Hetch-Hetchy) dammed up and sent to SF. LA has the Owens Valley water pumped over the mtns so they can water their freeways. Whatever else they can grab from the Colorado is gravy.
I agree.
After the compact was negotiated among the seven states,
later the United States gave a few million acre feet/ year to Mexico and some indian tribes.California stole so much of Arizona's water they sued California in the SCOTUS.
Then the Federal government built the Central Arizona Project
shipping Colorado River water in open aqueducts through the
valley of the Sun to Tucson, wasting precious water to evaporation.
McCain might have been chained down by previous senate race promises. What’s said is said. Life goes on. This is a no-win territorial haggling issue, just the kind of thing the drive-bys want to nail him with. “Divide and conquer.”
That’s politics. He can overcome this if he makes smart moves down the road.
That's the usual outcome.
But he has done lots of things for your neighbor to the south.
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That's the usual outcome.
You got that right.
How much will this hurt McCain in Colorado?
To hell with CA and AZ who over use their water supply. CO should dam the river and take their allotment. The other states can then scream bloody murder.
At the end of the day, I am unsure why McCain is even getting into the middle of this issue when he has 0 to gain. It’s not like he is loved in CO already but this is dimwit politics.
Potentially, a lot. Colorado has, historically, not taken their allotment. After suffering an extensive drought over the past few years, a lot of Coloradoans want to take our allotment.
This is a political hot potato in the West. Open up the debate and it will be bad for everyone involved.
I think Obama is going to lose all 50 states regardless but this is not a good opening act for McCain in Colorado. I won't vote for McCain anyway but this is dumb, dumb, dumb. It is not a fed issue and he should stay the hell away from water rights in the West.
Gettin’ ready for the water wars!
I am not familiar with the terms of the ‘Compact’. What do you all think?
Instead of blaming everything on ‘global warming’, McCain ought to think about the 20plus million illegal aliens using our resources.
The Colorado River Compact is the foundation centerpiece of the Law of the River. A summary of the Compact is provided below, followed by a description of the events leading to its negotiation and its major provisions.
Summary of the Compact:
The Colorado River Compact divides the Colorado River into Upper and Lower Basins with the division being at Lee Ferry on the Colorado River (one mile below the Paria River in Arizona).
Article III of the Compact apportions the waters of the Colorado River to the Upper and Lower Basins as follows:
There is lot California and other states could do. Instead of this mandate for disposal using tons of water start approving composting toilets, very efficient, could solve a lot of water problems.
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In Nevada, population growth uses water directly from their allocation. In Arizona, population growth uses water from the allocation but which has been historically used for irrigation. Population growth removes arable land from cultivation and it also frees up the water previously used for agriculture. Residential useage is about 10% of that of agriculture. Population growth reduces water useage.
The Compact is constantly being revised, not in its basic form but in implimation. The latest revision was signed late last year. Before that, Arizona was pumping water underground to avoid the use it or lose it provisions. Now they can store unused water in Lake Mead for later years.
Water has jumped in price from around $30 an acre foot to around $1500 an acre foot and the worst isn't over. It is the courts and not the Compact at fault. The courts have awarded the Indians ALL of Arizona's allotment. They just don't realize it yet.
Which leads me to conclude it's a very technical issue few people know about and it won't hurt McCain much. Also, the reservoirs here are very full after a blockbuster snow season, there are no serious water restrictions on, and we just finished three days of steady rain, which is highly unusual for here.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed the same thing will happen when the Obamessiah ascends his alter to deliver the Sermon on Invesco. :-))
Not at all ... folks in the Colorado River watershed are very well aware that water really is a problem, and we know that the parameters of the existing 1922 agreement really are quite strained. For example, who would have predicted way back then that Arizona would have such a large population? What should be done about the fact that California has come to rely on the other states not using their allocation?
The fact that McCain can talk about it intelligently at all is newsworthy -- Obama certainly couldn't.
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