WEBSITES: Department oif Interior

• Colorado River Post 2026 Operations. USBR.
• Integrated Technical Education Workshops. USBR.
• Federal investments for Colorado River long-term planning (DOI, USDA & EPA that totals 6 billion dollars).
• Exploration Tool for Post-2026 Operations in the Clorado River Basin (login required; use google chrome or firefox)

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• December 22, 2023 - Table: Lower Basin System Conservation Implementation Agreements
• December 22, 2023 - Upper Basin System Conservation amounts were less than 38,000 acre-feet.
• March 5, 2024 - Upper Basin States Alternative for EIS; Post-2026 Operations
• March 6, 2024 - Lower Basin States Alternative Presentation for EIS; Post-2026 Operations
• March 11, 2024 - Tribal Principles to Reclamation. Sovereign Tribes.
• March 29, 2024 - Cooperative Conservation NEPA Alternative. Audabon et al.
• March 29, 2024 -Managing the Powell / Grand Canyon / Mead Ecosystem after 2026. Schmidt, Kuhn and Fleck.
• MOU: Upper Basin Tribes and Upper Colorado River Commission.
• April 29, 2024 - National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Alternative

• 2020: The snowpack was 107%, but runoff was 61%. A deficit of 46%.
• 2021: The snowpack was 89%, but runoff was 37%. A deficit of 52 %.
• 2022: The snowpack was 90%, but runnoff was 63%. A deficit of 27%
• 2023: The snowpack was 161%, but runoff was 140%. A deficit of 21%.
• 2024: Projected runoff might be 87%.
• Source: KSL.com

NEWS

• May 5, 2024 - Why Colorado River basin states are split on long-term plan to manage its water. By Carter Williams for KSL.
• March 6, 2024 - Lower Colorado River Basin states submit competing water conservation plan as deadline looms. Sharon Udasin for The Hill.

NOTE: The Draft EIS is scheduled to be published at the end of Year 2024.

SCOPING REPORT is provided HERE

DISCUSSION: Deep Uncertainty
Definition: When parties do not know or cannot agree on future conditions and how to measure these conditions.

We think the future is easy to determine, but the necessary sacrifices to prepare for this future are not achievable, because our society is deeply disconnected from Nature. We find it difficult to accept this truth: Nature as baseline.

• Reclamation Report. Dr. Rebecca Smith.
• RAND Report
• CADSWES Report
• **CCASS Report

NEWS about Deep Uncertainty

• February 13, 2024 - With climate change Colorado River officials peer into muddy future. Joshua Partlow for Washington Post.

National Academy of Sciences on deep uncertainty

• "There is a broad class of problems that have no "solution" in the sense of an agreed course of action that would be expected to make the problem go away. These problems can also be so important that they should not be avoided or ignored until the fog lifts. We simply must learn to deal more effectively with their twists and turns as they unfold. We require sensible regular progress to anticipate what these developments might be with a balanced diversity of approaches. The payoff is that we will have had the chance to consider alternative courses of action with some degree of calm before we may be forced to choose among them in urgency or have them forced on us when other--perhaps better--options have been lost. Increasing atmospheric CO2 and its climatic consequences constitute such a problem." Reference, 1983.

The naturalist approach

• Presentation: Let the river speak. Dr. Victor R. Baker
• Interview: Rethinking the fabric of geology. Dr. Victor R. Baker.
• A Reverence for Rivers. Leopold.
• The Invention of Nature and Alexander Von Humboldt.

DOING THE MATH WITH PENCIL AND PAPER

• Baseline: Since 1991, the take from global warming is 800,000 acre-feet per decade, or 80,000 acre-feet per year.
• Baseline: Since 1999, the take from global warming and human over-consumption is 1.35 million acre-feet (maf) per year.
• Baseline: Total reductions of 1.35 maf will stabilize the system for the decade of the 2020s.
• Baseline: Restoring the reservoirs in the 2020s will require reductions of 2.7 maf.
• Baseline: Total reductions in the decade of the 2030s will be 3.5 maf.
• Baseline: Total reductions in the decade of the 2040s will be 4.3 maf.
• Baseline: Total reductions in the decade of the 2050s will be 5.1 maf.
• Baseline: Total reductions in the decade of the 2060s will be 5.9 maf.
• Did Reclamation simulate this in their modeling? Yes they did and in 2011.

NEWS

• With climate change Colorado River officials peer into muddy future. Joshua Partlow for Washington Post.
• Becky Mitchell shares priorities in ongoing Colorado River negotiations. By Bella Biondini for Gunnison Country Times.
• Two prominent farmers join calls to study Glen Canyon Dam decommissioning. By Tony Davis for Arizona Daily Star.
• Here's what the 7 states say about solving the West's water crisis. Greg Hass for KLAS News.
• As the Colorado River declines some upstream look to use it before they lose it.  By Wyatt Myskow for Inside Climate News.
• Colorado River problems, Glen Canyon Dam, fesalination and city that could run dry. By. Greg Haas for KLAS News.
• As Colorado River shrinks, California farmers urge 'One-Dam Solution'. By Ian James for Los Angeles Times.
• Colorado River Commission reviews lessons learned from water conservation program. By Heather Sackett for Aspen Journalism.
• California likely spared Colorado River cuts in 2024, but long-term woes remain. Janet Wilson for The Desert Sun.

COMMENT LETTERS FOR POST-2026 OPERATIONS EIS

• Living Rivers et al. Proposal to decommission Glen Canyon Dam and called The One-Dam Solution.
• Craig Morgan and Abatti Farms. Propose decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam.
• Imperial Irrigation District
• Lower Basin States. Study bypass at Glen Canyon Dam for low reservoir operations.
• The Municpal Suppy: SNWA, CAP & MWD. Study bypass at Glen Canyon Dam for low reservoir operations.
• Glen Canyon Institute. Study full bypass of Glen Canyon Dam and for flood control.
• Jenny E. Ross, JD
• Upper Basin Dialouge
• Grand Canyon Trust
• Save The Colorado
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Colorado River Indian Tribes
• Gila River Indian Community
• Hopi Tribe
• Jicarilla Apache Nation
• City of Phoenix
• Quechan Tribe
• Seven Basin States
• Salt River Project
• Upper Colorado River Commission
• Utah
• Ute Mountain Tribe
• Wyoming
• Yuma County, Arizona
• New Mexico

SCOPING COMMENTS COMPILED BY BUREAU OF RECLAMATION 

• Click here to visit this Reclamation website

• All submissions combined as a searchable document
• Tribal Submissions combined
• Individual submissions combined
• Organizations T to Z
• Organizations L to S
• Organizations G to K
• Organizations A to F
• Fed, State & Local S to Z
• Fed, State & Local G to R
• Fed, State & Local A to F
• Form letters combined (4 count)

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COMMENTS ARE DUE: Tuesday, August 15, 2023 (60 days)

Send comments to:

eMall address: crbpost2026@usbr.gov

Or. via postal service to:

Bureau of Reclamation
Attn: Post-2026 (Mail Stop 84- 55000)
P.O. Box 25007, Denver, CO 80225

Press Release

More information will be provided at a later time. Please return.

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• To review the Notice of Intent for this scoping process in 2023, click here.
• To compare the Notice of Intent for the scoping process in 2005, click here.
• To review last year's (2022) "prescoping" process, click here.
• To review the website for scoping process of 2023, click here.
• To review Reclamations presentation for public scoping, click here.
• To review the recordings of the three scoping webinars of 2023, click here.
• To review Reclamation's 2012 Handbook for following the NEPA process, CLICK HERE

ALTERNATIVES

• Please read the citizen alternative called the One-Dam Solution and written in 2005 by Living Rivers & Colorado Riverkeeper.
  

WE THINK THIS IS HELPFUL INFORMATION: Opinions by the Federal Appellate Court in the 10th District; July of 2023. NEPA litigation for the Green River Block Water Exchange Contract between Reclamation and the state of Utah; a new depletion contract for water stored in Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

• Majority Opinion
• Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich
• Judge Nancy Louise Moritz

• Minority Opinion (dissent)
• Judge Veronica Sophia Rossman

• Amicus Brief
• Uintah Ouray Ute Tribe

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NEWS

• June 16, 2023 - Fixing the flawed Colorado River Compact. By Shemin Ge et al for Eos (American Geophysical Union).
• June 16, 2023 - Tribes push for greater involvement in Colorado River talks. By Ian James for The Los Angeles Times.
• June 6, 2023 - The Grand Canyon and Colorado River are in Crisis. By Raymond Zhong for The New York Times.

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NARRATIVE

During the public scoping meetings for the development of 2007 Interim Guidelines, the water managers in attendance were emphatic; that reductions greater than 20% would be "impossible" to achieve. This is why the seven states did not participate in the voluntary prescriptions of the original Guidelines, until reservoir elevations approached the level where intakes at Glen Canyon Dam begin to suck air.

Precautionary planning in the Colorado River Basin was possible in 1970 when Long Range Operating Criteria (LROC) became the first tool to achieve water resource sustainibilty, and precautionary planning right now is a situation of too little and too late.  Because this economic engine is designed for consumptive uses of 16.5 million acre-feet annualy, not 12.5 maf (a reduction of minus 25%). Consequently, the decision-makers have to understand that this ship has already slammed into an iceberg. We will eventually understand that the best solution is to begin conversations about starting over.

Read: Revelle and Wagoneer, 1983

The proposed reductions from the Lower Basin States, as of this date, is about 12% per year. The ask from Reclamation was a range from 14% to 27%. Additionally, it would appear that the Upper Basin states will not be participating in any reductions at this time. The Upper Basin states are building and enlarging dams at the present time, and other diversion contracts have been proposed. Consequently, the grassroots have intervened by engaging the judicial branch of governement.

At the end of the next decade, reductions of 30% will be necessary; and then 40% in the following decades thereafter. Especially if the municipalities continue to sprawl across the deserts of North America, and fueling that growth by purchasing water from farmers that take the responsibility of feeding the nation very seriously.

Proposed new sources of water, such as constructing desalination facilities, and the electric generating stations that will power them, and the pipelines, and the pump stations, and the transmission wires, will not be operational in the 2030s, nor in the 2040s.

So these are the decades when the system will crash and the assets of 50 to 60 million people become stranded.

If your thinking otherwise, consider that it took parts of four decades to negotiate the Law of the River, and to finish the construction of Hoover Dam, the All American Canal, and the Colorado River Aqueduct.

We can anticipate the depletion of our groundwater supplies as the third and final bad planning decision, and witness the great abandonment of this geography.

Rather than kicking a rusty can in the wrong direction, let's stop this madness and take a completely different pathway.

• Read our 2022 prescoping comment letter HERE, which concludes that this process must include an emergency action plan because the seven states will fail once again and the system will be lost.

• Review the entire prescoping process from last year (2022) HERE

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COMPARING THE PROCESS OF 2005 WITH THE PROCESS OF 2022

Federal Register Notices of 2023 and from 2005

• Click here to review the Federal Register Notice of June 16, 2023.
• Note: this document above avoids important subjects such as, the changing characteristics of the atmosphere and ocean, floods, evaporation, sublimation, and sedimentation; the looming problems that are always dismissed at every level of future planning.
• Click here to compare the Federal Register Notice for the current guidelines to avoid water shortages and from Year 2005 (June 15).

• Click here to read the summary of pre-scoping in 2022
• Click here to read the summary of scoping in 2005

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TERMINATION DATES OF 2007 INTERIM GUIDELINES

Termination date of 2007 Guidelines
See: 2007 Record of Decision.

• "Except as provided in Section 8.B., these Guidelines shall terminate on December 31, 2025 (through preparation of the 2026 Annual Operating Plan)."

Termination dates of "Special Provisions"

• 1. "The provisions for the delivery and accounting of ICS in Section 3 shall remain in effect through December 31, 2036, unless subsequently modified, for any ICS remaining in an ICS Account on December 31, 2026."
• 2. "The provisions for the creation and delivery of Tributary Conservation ICS and Imported ICS in Section 3 shall continue in full force and effect until fifty years from the date of the execution of the ROD."
• 3. "The provisions for the creation and delivery of DSS in Section 4 shall continue in full force and effect until fifty years from the date of the execution of the ROD."