Selling the Water: Sensible or Sacrilegious?

SALT LAKE CITY — Everything has its price--unless you’re wheeling and dealing in Colorado River water.

Those who rule the river consider the water that gives life to an arid seven-state region more a heritage or birthright than a commodity subject to the rough and tumble of the free market.

And to sell that right is sacrilege, they say, not to mention grounds for what would be a lengthy and expensive lawsuit.

“Water is special, damn it,” says Phil Mutz, New Mexico’s Colorado River commissioner, when pressed to explain his resistance to marketing water along the river.

Mutz and most of his counterparts are troubled by Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s push to lease Utah’s share of unused Colorado River water. They reject a minority view that, since demand along the Colorado has changed, it’s time to reconsider how the water is managed.

Adding tension to the debate is that Utah has a willing buyer in booming southern Nevada, which gets the smallest share of the Colorado but has the greatest immediate need. And what price would Nevada pay?

“That’s a good question,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. “But we are a long ways from setting a price.”

For now, the mechanism for dividing Colorado River water among Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Mexico and 10 Indian tribes is a collection of compacts, court decisions, treaties, statutes and federal rules referred to as the Law of the River.

Opinions vary on whether the law permits or prohibits the buying and selling of water between states or between the upper and lower basins of the river.

Opponents say the practice would upset a delicate distribution and storage system that has evolved over 75 years, allowing one state to use another’s share of unused water without charge.

Would-be marketers, however, say the Law of the River is flexible enough to accommodate buying and selling. They say the real obstacle is widespread fear that tinkering with the existing setup would result in some states losing or paying for what they now get free.

The reasoning behind Leavitt’s proposal is straightforward: Cost and environmental regulations make it impossible to develop Utah’s remaining 500,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water. Utah’s total share of the Colorado is about 1.4 million acre-feet.

So the governor wants to market it downstream and use the money to develop more economical water resources in Utah.

“It’s very clear to me that we have a resource of enormous value that is just going down the river,” he said. “So we have a choice of letting it go down and get nothing for it, or move toward gaining value from it.”

Jim Lockhead, Colorado River commissioner for the state of Colorado, contends those who crafted the compacts and agreements didn’t foresee a free market allocating the Colorado. Making that change would jeopardize the security of having water for future development, he said.

Leavitt favors long-term leasing of Utah’s portion--perhaps 50 years--rather than outright selling. But that idea doesn’t give Lockhead or other river officials any comfort.

“As a practical matter, if you lease water and make someone dependent on that water, getting that back is going to be extremely difficult,” Lockhead said.

Lockhead said Colorado would file suit to block any attempt by Leavitt to lease a drop of upper-basin water. Leavitt said he expects other states would join a lawsuit against Utah, although none is as militant as Colorado.

Leavitt has supporters. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt recently told the Colorado River Water Users Assn. that “water marketing is an important tool that can help us to use the water in the Colorado River more effectively.”

Babbitt also announced an initiative that would explore water marketing within the river’s lower basin of California, Nevada and Arizona to resolve conflicts over the concept.

Lockhead and others contend that if California--which is consuming nearly 1 million acre-feet over its allotment--would live within its means, the pressure to buy and sell water between states would be relieved.

California officials say they are working on water conservation and have joined with Nevada and Arizona in a water-banking enterprise--storing surplus water underground in Arizona for future use.

But leasing a block of water from Utah is more attractive to the heavy downstream users because it removes the uncertainties inherent in dry and wet years along the river.

“It makes more sense to pay for the water and have some degree of surety when you need it than to live off the if-come,” Mulroy said.

Other powerful Leavitt allies are the Indian tribes, who would rather keep the water in the river and market it than see it dammed and diverted to irrigation.

Kenley Brunsdale, an attorney for a group of Utes in southern Colorado, believes the federal government--and Congress--may conclude that keeping the water in the river would not only help the tribes, but help solve serious environmental problems caused by dams.

“I see great value in using water for wildlife habitat and marketing water . . . and using the money for the tribe’s best interests,” said Gary Hansen, water resources director for the Colorado Indian Tribes organization in northern Arizona.

Whatever happens, neither Leavitt nor his opponents expects a water-leasing deal to be struck--and challenged--anytime soon.

“Issues on the Law of the River span lifetimes, but my goal is to at least get the issue on the public agenda,” Leavitt said. “In time, attitudes will change, and it’s not inconceivable to find a way to do it.”