Law of the River

Overview

The "Law of the River" is a term of art used to encompass all of the laws, regulations, treaties, compacts, contracts, environmental impact statements and accompanying records of decisions, and all other mechanisms for managing the river. This section provides an overview of key aspects of the Law of the River, provides links to key documents, and also a list of other Law of the River resources.

Especially noteworthy are 4 documents issued by Interior/Reclamation since 1933 approximately every 30 years, except for the first update in 1948. Each document consists of several chapters of analysis followed by extensive appendices. Where appropriate, links are provided to useful chapters and appendixes in the sub-sections below. The complete documents are also provided:

The 1933 Hoover Dam Water and Power Contracts ("Wilbur and Ely, 1933", below) by Interior Secretary Ray Lyman Wilbur and Northcutt Ely, assistant to the Secretary, was the first of these documents.
The 1948 Hoover Dam Documents, ("Wilbur and Ely, 1948" below) was released 15 years later.
The 1978 Updating the Hoover Dam Documents ("Nathanson, 1978", below) was released 30 years later.
The 2008 Colorado River Documents ("Verberg, 2008", below) was released after another 30 years. This document contains both an appendix and a DVD supplement reproduced herein.

Summaries of the Law of the River of various lengths are provided by:

Reclamation one-page summary of the Law of the River
2022 Congressional Research Service Management of the Colorado River: Water Allocations, Drought, and the Federal Role focusses heavily on the Law of the River (26 pages).
2022 Colorado Water Center Tabular Summary of Law of the River (Kwon and Gimbel)
2022 Colorado Water Center 'Quenching Thirst on the Law of the River (Kwon and Gimbel)
1978 Nathanson Summary of the Law of the River, provides an excellent 28-page overview up to 1978.

HTML Chart	1	2	3	4
1	1	1	1	1
2	2	2	2	2
3	3	3	3	3
4	4	4	4	4

HTML Chart	1	2	3	4
1	1	1	1	1
2	2	2	2	2
3	3	3	3	3
4	4	4	4	4

1902 Reclamation Act (32 Stat. 388)

The 1902 Reclamation act, also known as the Newlands Act after the chief sponsor, Senator Francis Newlands of Nevada, allowed the federal government to study and construct irrigation works in 16 Western States and territories. The efforts were initially funded from the sales of public lands in those states. Large projects, like Hoover Dam, were funded by congressional appropriations. Shortly after the act was signed into law by President Teddy Roosevelt, the Reclamation Service was established by Interior Secretary Hitchcock within the USGS to carry out the purposes of the act. In 1907 the Reclamation Service became a separate entity within the Department of Interior and in 1923 it was renamed the Bureau of Reclamation. The act was later modified multiple times, most notably by 1982 Reclamation Reform Act (link). Reclamation operates about 180 projects in the American West.

Resources

Text of the Act
Reclamation provides a brief history of the act here .
An Annotated version of the Act from Reclamation.

1908 Supreme Court Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564

The 1908 Supreme Court case of Winters underpins all Indian water rights and thus is included in this list. The Supreme Court found that Congress implicitly created a federal “reserved” water right whenever it created a reservation of any kind, e.g., National Forest, Military Base, Native American Reservation. Federal reserved water rights are unique in that they cannot be lost through lack of use, and have a priority dating to the time of the creation of the reservation. Quantification of these rights has occurred through litigation and increasingly through Congressionally approved and funded voluntary settlements.

In the 1963 Opinion and 1964 Decree in Arizona v. California, the Court quantified the size of Winters rights in Arizona (and CA?)_as the ‘potentially irrigable acreage’ of the reservation. That decree (text) awarded more than 700,000 af of water to 5 different mainstem Arizona tribes, Cocopah, Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), Fort Mohave. Later adjustments to the Decree added additional acreage and water rights to the reservations (see 2005 Decree and Verberg 2008).

Resources

1908 Supreme Court Opinion
John Shurts covers the history of Winters in his 2000 book, Indian Reserved Water Rights , derived from his Phd Dissertation.
University of Utah Professor Daniel McCool put Indian Water rights in the larger context of water use in Command of the Waters, Iron Triangles, Federal Water Development and Indian Water.
Other Law Review articles? Tribal water rights are discussed further below.
Tribal Water Rights Page on this wiki
2022 Colorado State University Law of the River Document, Tribal Chapter
Verberg 2008 provides updates post 1978 in Chapter 10 Native American Water Rights Settlements .
University of New Mexico Native American Water Rights Settlements Database
Water and Tribes Initiative Website
Arizona v. California
Tribal Water Study

1922 Colorado River Compact

The 1922 Compact is a short document that fits on 4 typed pages. Article I states the purposes of the Compact which include "the equitable diversion and apartment of the use of the waters of the Colorado River System" among 4 other purposes. Article II supplies 8 key definitions for "Colorado River System", "Colorado River Basin", "States of the Upper Division", "States of the Lower Division", "Upper Basin", "Lower Basin" and "domestic use". "Upper Basin" and "Lower Basin" are defined using watersheds with Lee Ferry as the dividing line between the two basins. In common usage today, "Upper Basin" and "Lower Basin" are often, but not exclusively, used to mean what the Compact defines as the "States of the Upper and Lower Divisions", namely Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming for the Upper Division and Arizona California and Nevada for the Lower Division. In the definition for Upper and Lower Basins It is important to note that the Compact acknowledges that small portions of Arizona lies in the hydrographic Upper Basin and small parts of Utah (e.g Virgin River) and New Mexico (e.g. Gila river) lie in the Lower Basin. The Article III provides the allocation in 7 different subsections, (a) to (f). Subsection (a) grants 'exclusive beneficial consumptive use (not defined) of 7.5 maf to each basin. Article (b) grants the Lower Basin an additional 1 maf. Subsection (c) provides that in the event of a treaty with Mexico, those waters will first come from 'surplus' over and above the amounts in subsections (a) and (b), and then second from equal shares from the Upper and Lower Basins. Further, the Upper Basin shall supply its amounts at Lee Ferry. Subsection (d) says the the states of the Upper Division will not cause the flow at Leff to be depleted below an aggregate of 75 maf every 10 running years. Article (e) says that the Upper Division states stand not withhold water and the states of the Lower Division stand not require water delivery than cannot reasonable be applied to domestic and agricultural uses. Subsection (f) provides for future allocation of after October 1963. Subsection (g) discusses how states will call for future apportionment. Article IV state that the river has ceased to be navigable and allows power generation but makes that generation 'subservient' to domestic and agricultural purposes. Article VI deals with claims and controversies. Article VII states that the Compact does not affect the obligations of the United States to Indian tribes. Article VIII says that 'Present Perfected Rights' are unimpaired by the compact and that whenever 5 maf of storage has been provided for the benefit of the Lower Basin, any claims of Present Perfect Right holders, if any, against the Upper Basin shall 'attach to and be satisfied' from the stored water. Article IX allows for unanimous termination of the compact. Article X says the compact will become binding upon the approval of the legislatures of the 7 Staes and the Congress.

Resources

Text of the Compact
Nathanson 1978 provides an overview in Chapter 1 Law of the River Section B.
Minutes of the 1922 Compact Commissioners' Discussions
Noted historian Norris Hundley's Book, | Water and the West is on the Compact.
Noteworthy Law Review Articles
- Stanford Law Dean Charlie Meyer's seminal 1968 article The Colorado River
- University of Colorado Law Dean David Getches 1985 Competing Demands for the Colorado River
- University of Wyoming Law Professor Larry MacDonnell
- University of Wyoming Robison 2017 The Colorado River Revisited

1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act (45 Stat. 1057)

The Boulder Canyon Project Act (text) was enacted to control floods, improve navigation, regulate flows, store and deliver water for the reclamation of lands, and to generate electricity. It funded and approved the construction of Hoover Dam and the All-American Canal contingent on the approval of the Colorado River Compact. Given Arizona’s refusal to ratify the Compact because of disputes over the Gila River and its desired allocation, the act allowed for approval if 6 states, including California, ratified the compact provided that California limited itself to 4.4 maf /year of Colorado River water. The act reserved for Arizona complete use of its tributaries. In 1963, the US Supreme Court in Arizona v. California (below) found that Congress via the act had apportioned the flow of the Colorado River among California, Nevada and Arizona.

Resources

Text of the Act
Nathanson’s Chapter I, Section C provides many details on the Act.
Many documents relating to signed water and power contracts can be found in Reclamation’s compilations of Law of the River documents.
The original act was modified in 1940 by the Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act which modified the power rate structure agreed to in the original power contracts.
Pulitzer Prize winning Los Angeles Times writer Michael Hiltzik covered the construction and history of Hoover Dam in his 2010 book, Colossus

1931 California Seven Party Agreement

The Secretary of the Interior requested California internally agree on the priorities of Colorado River water users before issuing water contracts from Hoover Dam. In 1931 the parties provided this agreement. The first three priorities totaled 3.85 maf/year of water for agricultural uses in the Palo Verde Irrigation District, the Yuma Project (Reservation Division), and the Imperial and Coachella Valley irrigation districts. The 4th priority was 550 kaf/year for the Metropolitan Water District. These first four priorities totalled 4.4 maf/year. Three additional priorities to Metropolitan, San Diego, Imperial, Coachella and Palo Verde added another 962 kaf/year in use for a total of 5.362 maf/year. Due to ambiguities in the original agreement, in 2003, the parties agreed to modifications in the Quantification Settlement Agreement.

Resources

1931 California Seven Party Agreement
Nathanson 1978 has a brief discussion of the agreement in Chapter 1, Summary of the Law of the River, Section D .
The 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement removed some ambiguities.

1944 Treaty with Mexico

The 1922 Compact anticipated a treaty with Mexico in Article III(c), and in 1944 that treaty was signed, giving Mexico 1.5 maf/year, with up to 200 kaf/year extra in ‘surplus’ years and possible reductions commensurate with United States cutbacks during ‘extraordinary drought’. The International Boundary Waters Commission ("IBWC"), consisting of an American Section and a Mexican Section, is the operational entity for the treaty. The treaty is commonly accepted to be the highest priority right on the river. The treaty was silent about water quality. The Mexicans complained about highly saline water deliveries In 19xx after the Welton-Mohawk starting pumping salty groundwater into the Gila River which flowed to Mexico. This ultimately led to a modification of the treaty via a "Minute", the standard mechanism for changes. In Minute 323 delivery cutbacks to Mexico during drought were first quantified.

Resources

The Treaty
Wilbur and Lyman 1948 in Chapter XIV, The Mexican Water Treaty discuss the negotiations and Senate ratification.
Nathanson 1978 covers the treaty in Chapter 1, Section F, The Mexican Water Treaty
Verberg 2008 covers the treaty in Chapter 4, Mexico Water Treaty Deliveries.
The history and implications of the treaty were covered by Stanford Law School Dean Charles Meyer and Law Professor Richard Noble in a 1967 article The Colorado River: The Treaty with Mexico.
Noted historian Norris Hundley discuss the treaty in an 1967 article The Politics of Water and Geography: California and the Mexican-American Treaty of 1944 and an out-of-print book 1966 book, Dividing the Waters .
Nathanson, 1978 Chapter 1, Section O describes the history of Mexican Salinity Problems

All treaty Minutes are available on the IBWC website.
- Extraordinary Drought Minutes
- Environmental Minutes
- 2012 Minute 319 on Environmental Flows
- 2017 Minute 323 on XXXX
- Salinity Minutes
- 1965 Minute 218 on Salinity
- 1972 Minute 241 on Salinity
- 1973 Minute 242 on Salinity

1948 Upper Colorado River Basin Compact

The 4 main Upper Basin States (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) plus Arizona, signed the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact on October 11, 1948. The 1948 Compact was modeled on the 1922 Compact but is significantly longer and contains far more details. Article III apportions water among the states on a percentage basis with Colorado receiving 51.75%, New Mexico 11.25%, Utah 23% and Wyoming 14% of the flow available for use under the 1922 Colorado River Compact. Arizona receives a flat 50,000 acre-feet for its very small landbase within the hydrologic Upper Basin. Article IV describes how the Upper Basin will handle a ‘curtailment’ if the 75 maf/10 year non-depletion obligation at Lee Ferry in Article III(d) of the 1922 Compact is violated. (A compact ‘curtailment’ is sometimes referred to as a ‘compact call’, using language from states’ prior appropriation systems whereby a downstream senior diverter can request (a “call”) that the state water engineer cut off diversions by an upstream junior diverter so that the senior can receive water. While convenient shorthand, there is no equivalent mechanism in the 1922 Compact and no impartial entity to determine if a violation has occurred.) Article V describes how to account for reservoir losses. Article VIII established the Upper Colorado River Commission | (website) with one representative from each of the 4 states plus a United States Representative. Articles XI to XIV allocate the waters of specific interstate streams among states.

Resources

1948 Upper Colorado River Basin Compact Text
Nathanson 1978 briefly discusses the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact in Chapter 1, Section G, The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact .
Verberg 2008 devotes Chapter 7 to the The Upper Colorado River Commission .
Verberg 2008 discusses Upper Basin water development starting with the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act in Chapter 8 Upper Basin Water Development.
The Upper Colorado River Commission website.

1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act (70 Stat. 105)

The 1956 Act approved the construction of Glen Canyon Dam (26.2 maf, completed 1963), Navajo Dam and Reservoir on the San Juan (1.7 maf, completed 1962), Flaming Gorge Dam and Reservoir on the Green River (3.8 maf, completed 1962) and the Aspinall Unit on the Gunnison River (previously Curecanti Unit) (3 Dams – Blue Mesa 940 kaf, Crystal 26 kaf, and Morrow Point Dams 117 kaf). The act created an Upper Colorado River Basin Fund to collect revenues from power, repayments etc. It also funded 11 other ‘participating projects’. The act approved studies on 25 additional projects, including, notably, the San Juan-Chama Project, an important transbasin diversion from the San Juan River to the Rio Grande. Finally, it authorized up to $760m to fund the projects.

Resources

Text of the Act
Nathanson 1978 has a short overview of the act in Chapter 1, Section H .
Russell Martin's 1991 (updated 2017) book Story that Stands Like a Dam is about Glen Canyon Dam.

1963 Supreme Court Opinion on Arizona v. California and 1964 Decree

Resources

Supreme Court Opinions and Decrees
- 1963 Supreme Court Opinion
- 1964 Decree
- 1960 Special Master Rifkind Report and Suggested Decree
- 1979 Supplemental Decree
- 1984 second supplemental decree. link
- 2000 Supplemental Decree increases the water allocated to the Colorado River and Fort Mohave Indian Reservations.
- 2005 Consolidated Decree collapses all previous decrees into one decree.
Analysis
- Nathanson 1978 provides extensive background on the the case in Chapter VIII Arizona v. California.
- Nathanson 1978 provides an overview of the findings in Chapter IX Summary of Opinion and Decree
- Verberg 2008 provides updates on the case post 1978 in Chapter 11 Arizona v. California
Law Review Articles
- Meyers
- Getches
- MacDonnell et al
Earlier AZ v CA Cases

Lake Powell Filling Criteria. link

1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act 82 Stat. 885

The 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act provides Congressional approval and funding for Arizona's long sought Central Arizona Project after the Supreme Court ruled in 1963 on Arizona's claims for Colorado River water. The CAP is a large (up to 1.6 maf/year, +1200 cfs) 336 mile long canal that moves water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu all the way to south of Tucson passing Phoenix and Pinal County (agriculture) on the way. Previous efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to pass similar legislation had failed due to the unresolved Arizona claims to Colorado River water. In exchange for the act, California received a senior priority to water over the CAP canal should there be a Lower Basin shortage. The Upper Basin received approval for 5 projects, of which 3 were built. Early versions of the act proposed large dams in the Grand Canyon to help fund repayment costs and provide energy for the CAP canal pumping plants. Due to public outcry, these dams were removed from the final act and were replaced by the Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, which was shut down and demolished in 2020?. The canal was finished in stages, with the final section completed in 1994. Total cost was over $4B. The canal is managed by the Central Arizona Water Conservancy District. Section 602(a), discussed below, acknowledged the need for reservoir operating rules for all of the reservoirs constructed since the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act. In 2007, for the first time, rules for when and how much to cutback deliveries were formalized in the XXXXX. In 2022, the first formal 'Tier 1' shortage for the Central Arizona Project occurred.

Resources

1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act Text
Nathanson 1978 provides a summary in Chapter1, Law of the River, Section M.
Nathanson 1978 Chapter XII Colorado River Basin Project Act covers the act in detail.
Central Arizona Water Conservancy District Website
Johnson discussed the law in his book, [The Central Arizona Project 1918-1968. ]

1970 Long Range Operating Criteria (i.e. Sections 602(a-c) of 1968 Act)

With the completion of Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge, Navajo and the Curecanti/Aspinall unit in the early 1960s, operating along with Lake Mead (first filled in 1935) it became clear that rules were needed on how to jointly operate all the dams. A somewhat similar issue had arisen over how to fill Lake Powell starting in 1963 because its filling would impact Lake Mead power production and possibly Lower Basin water deliveries. The filling issues were addressed in 1963 with the release of Filling Criteria which remained operational until Powell filled to elevation 3700’ in 198x. Section 602(a) of the 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act tasked Interior with devising long range operating criteria (LROC) for its dams by July 1, 1970. Section 602(a) also requires the Secretary to send to Congress each year on January 1 a report describing the operations of the previous year, and the operations for the next year, now know as the Annual Operating Plan (AOP).

The first LROC described 3 conditions, surplus, normal and shortage. (Some copies of the 1970 LROC misname "shortage" as "storage". See the original Federal Register Notice for the correct form.)The determination of the condition was left to the Secretary of Interior. A normal condition had an annual target release of 8.23 million acrefeet per year from Glen Canyon Dam, one-tenth of the 75 maf/ten years Compact Article III(d) non-depletion obligation plus one half of the annual Mexico Treaty requirement less a small tributary, the Paria River, just upstream of the Compact III(d) delivery point of Lee Ferry. This release has been called the “minimum objective release”. The LROC also established when Powell would release extra water to Mead to balance reservoir contents, known as ‘equalization’. Compact Article III(e) allows for unused Upper Basin water to be used by the Lower Basin and it is equalization that provides at least some of this water. It is important to note that the #2001 Interim Surplus Guidelines, the #2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead, and the #2019 Drought Contingency Plans modified the operating criteria by formalizing rules for surplus and shortage.

Resources

1970 Federal Register Notice on LROC. Note that III 3(c) is correctly named "shortage", not "storage", as in some later copies of the LROC.
Section 602(a) of the Colorado River Basin Project Act
Nathanson 1978 Chapter 1, Section O has an overview of the LROC.
Nathanson 1978 Chapter VIII, Operating Criteria has a lengthy and important discussion of how the operating criteria came to be. It includes the differing views of the states and basins, the process, the initial draft criteria and the provisions in the final criteria.
Verberg 2008 Chapter 1 Colorado River Operations provides updates on the modifications to the criteria since 1970, including the five 5-year reviews between 1975 and 1997 which did not change the criteria. Minor modifications were made in the 2005 update (text) including the specification of 14.85 maf as the “602(a) storage” amount, the minimum amount of water needed in Lake Powell for equalization releases to Lake Mead.
media:CR_Docs_2008_Supplemental_095_69_FR_28945,_Interim_602(a)_Storage_Guideline_(May_19,_2004).pdf
Nathanson 1978 Appendix VII has extensive material on the development of the LROC.
Reclamation Modeling study on the impacts of the Long Range Operating Criteria
Nathanson 1978 summarizes the Lake Powell Filling Criteria in Chapter 1 Law of the River, Section L.
1980 Letter terminating the Filling Criteria

media:Section_602a_CRBPA.pdf

media:UHDDocs_1978_Appendix_VI_Filling_Criteria_TOC.pdf

ANNUAL OPERATING PLANS [1]

1974 Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (88 Stat. 266)

Resources

The Act itself
Papers at the time

1975 Grand Canyon Enlargement Act

In 1975 the Congress transferred all federal lands from the Paria River, just above Lee Ferry, all the way to the Grand Wash Cliffs where the river exits the physical Grand Canyon onto a broad plain at Lake Mead, to enlarge the existing Canyon Canyon National Park to match the boundaries of the physical Grand Canyon. It also provided the Secretary of Interior with the authority and funding to purchase additional lands in the designated corridor as necessary. In addition to recognizing that the physical Grand Canyon was much larger than the existing National Park, this action was taken in part to rule out future dams like the proposed 'cash register' dams in Marble Canyon and Bridge Canyon Dams to help pay for the Central Arizona Project. The act abolished the Grand Canyon National Monument, a 1932 monument in the Lower Grand Canyon created by President Hoover, and Marble Canyon National Monument, a 1969 designation by President Johnson just before leaving office. Both monuments and other federals lands were incorporated within the greatly enlarged park.

Resources

Text of the Act
Map of Grand Canyon
Map 2 of Grand Canyon

2001 Interim Surplus Guidelines

In 2001 Interior put in place rules for determining when surplus water from Lake Mead would be made available to Arizona, California and Nevada. The rules were to run through calendar year 2016 but were later extend to 2026 to match the 2007 Interim Guidelines. The rules interact with the Long Range Operating Criteria and the 1964 Arizona v. California decree, specially article II(B)(6) which governs the allocation of 'unused basic apportionment water'.

Section XI of the ROD, "Implementing the Decision", provides the surplus rules. When Lake Mead is at or below elevation 1125' the Secretary shall determine a 'Normal' or 'Shortage' year. A 'Partial Domestic Surplus' will exist when Mead is between elevation 1125' and 1145'. When Mead is above 1145' and below the "70R Strategy" amount, a 'Full Domestic Surplus' shall be declared. A 'Quantified Surplus' shall be declared when there is a risk of potential reservoir spills from Mead. Finally, a 'Flood Control Surplus' shall exist when either 'space building' or flood control releases are necessary.

The guidelines indicate that Reclamation intends to develop shortage guidelines through the 5-year review of the LROC, when appropriate. That process commenced in 2005 and resulted in the 2007 Interim Guidelines.

Resources

2001 Record of Decision for the Guidelines
2001 Federal Register Notice on Guidelines
Verberg 2008 discusses the Interim Surplus Guidelines in Chapter 2 Interim Guidelines.
Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Guidelines

2003 Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement

The 2003 Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement is a complicated agreement formalized by a Record of Decision and FEIS. Prior to the completion of the Central Arizona Project in 1994, California was using in excess of its 4.4 maf/year apportionment, a use of the unused apportionments of Arizona and Nevada allowed by the Arizona v. California 1964 decree. With the completion of the Central Arizona Project in 1994 and growth in Las Vegas, Arizona and Nevada began to use their full apportionments in the mid 1990s. After 1996, the Secretary allowed the excess use to continue under the surplus provisions of the decree. With the expectation that surpluses would diminish in future years, California undertook a process to reduce its uses to 4.4 maf / year, an effort sometimes referred to as the '4.4 Plan'. This process involved a number of complicated steps including a 'Quantification Settlement Agreement' among Coachella Valley Water District, Imperial Irrigation District, and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California dealing with California's apportionment of Colorado River water dating back to the 1931 California Seven Party Agreement. Agreement. Certain transfers of water were also approved, including water to the San Diego Country Water Authority. In all, the agreement allowed between 200,000 and 400,000 acre-feet of more water per year diverted at MWD's Lake Havasu diversion point rather than at Imperial Dam for the Imperial Irrigation District. The federal portion of the QSA water transfers were implemented by the 2003 Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement; other non-federal agreements between the California diverters were made separately (See IID website, below.). In addition, the agreement lays out how these diverters will pay back inadvertent delivery overruns in the Inadvertent Overrun and Payback Policy (IOPP). An EIS was conducted to make sure that there agreements would not harm endangered species.

Resources

2003 Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement
2003 Inadvertent Overrun and Payback Policy
Reclamation IOPP Fact Sheet
Reclamation QSA Fact Sheet
FEIS
San Diego Country Water Authority QSA Fact Sheet
Imperial Irrigation District maintains a page with QSA-related documents [2]
Water Education Foundation article on the 4.4 Plan [3]

2005 Multispecies Conservation Program Record of Decision and FEIS

The Mutlispecies Conservation Program is a large (57 entity) effort in the Lower Colorado River to provide Endangered Species Act compliance for diversions in the Colorado River below Hoover Dam. It will run through 20xx and had total funding of $xxxm. Every major diverter in the Lower Basin participates in this program. An operational entity, the XXXXX, oversees the program.

MENTION SPECIES

From the Operational Entity website:

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (LCR MSCP) was created to balance the use of the Colorado River water resources with the conservation of native species and their habitats. The program works toward the recovery of species currently listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It also reduces the likelihood of additional species listings. Implemented over a 50-year period, the program accommodates current water diversions and power production, and will optimize opportunities for future water and power development by providing ESA compliance through the implementation of a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP).

The program area extends over 400 miles of the lower Colorado River from Lake Mead to the southernmost border with Mexico, and includes lakes Mead, Mohave, and Havasu, as well as the historic 100-year floodplain along the main stem of the lower Colorado River. The HCP calls for the creation of over 8,100 acres of habitat for fish and wildlife species and the production of over 1.2 million native fish to augment existing populations. The plan will benefit at least 27 species, most of which are state or federally listed endangered, threatened, or sensitive species.

The Bureau of Reclamation is the implementing agency for the LCR MSCP. Partnership involvement occurs primarily through the LCR MSCP Steering Committee, currently representing 57 entities, including state and Federal agencies, water and power users, municipalities, Native American tribes, conservation organizations, and other interested parties, which provides input and oversight functions in support of LCR MSCP implementation. Program costs are evenly divided between the Federal government and non-federal partners.'

Resources

2006 Navajo Dam Record of Decision and FEIS

This Record of Decision (ROD) formalized Endangered Species Act (ESA) flow recommendations to maintain or improve habitat for two endangered species, razorback sucker and Colorado pikeminnow in the San Juan Basin below Navajo Dam and Reservoir. The ROD allows for current and future water depletions in the basin to be in compliance with the ESA. Flow recommendations used in the ROD were provided by the the San Juan Basin River Recovery Implementation Program (SJRBRIP), a cooperative effort of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, South Ute and Ute Mountain Indian Tribes, the Navajo and Jicarilla Apache Nations, the states of Colorado and New Mexico, and water development interests. The selected flow alternative for operation is called "250/5000 Alternative". Under this alternative, dam releases would vary from 250 cfs to 5000 cfs. Table 2 in the Executive Summary compares the studied alternatives.

Resources

2006 Record of Decision
Table 2 Comparing the Alternatives
2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement
- Executive Summary
- [[media:Navajo_FEIS_2006_Volume_I.pdf | Volume I]
- Volume 2 Technical Appendices
- Volume 3 Comments
- Biological Opinion
San Juan Basin River Recovery Program

2006 Flaming Gorge Record of Decision and 2005 FEIS

Starting in xx, Reclamation conducted an EIS for the purpose of ascertaining...

The Record of Decision found that..

Resources

2006 Record of Decision

2005 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) Documents

Biological Opinions
- 2005 Biological Opinion
- 1992 Biological Opinion
flow Targets

2007 Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead

Resources

December 13 2007 Record of Decision
Federal Register Notice
Verberg 2008 in Chapter 2 Interim Guidelines for Powell and Mead provides a lengthy discussion about the interlinked nature of the Interim Surplus Guidelines, the 602(a) Long Range Operating Criteria and the 2007 Interim Guidelines
There was an extensive Environmental Impact Statement
- FEIS Volume
- FEIS Volume
[[media:CR_Docs_2008_Supplemental_096_73_FR_19873,_Interim_Guidelines_(April_11,_2008).pdf | Federal Register Notice Announcing the Guidelines, April 8, 2008 ]
2005 Secretary Letter indicating need for Shortage Guidelines
2020 7.D. Review of the Interim Guidelines by Reclamation (First step in establishing the new Guidelines for post 2026 operations)
- 2020 7.D. Review of the Interim Guidelines by Reclamation
- 2020 7.D Appendix A

2012 Aspinall Unit Record of Decision and FEIS

In 2012 Reclamation issued a Record of Decision (ROD) on the operations of the Aspinall Unit, i.e., Blue Mesa, Morrow Point and Crystal Dams on the Gunnison River in Colorado. The ROD modified reservoir operations to produce higher and more natural downstream spring flows and moderate base flows to avoid jeopardizing four endangered fish. The recommended flows were produced by the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. Four alternative flows, plus a no action alternative were studied. Alternative B was selected, "Fish Peak with Duration Alternative". The targeted flows are measured at the Gunnison River near Grand Junction gage with spring peaks from 900 cfs in dry years to over 14,000 cfs in wet years. Base flows, minimum flows and ramping rates are part of the flow package. The flows are based on the Blue Mesa forecasted inflows from April to July from the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

Resources

2016 Glen Canyon Dam Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan ROD and FEIS

Resources

2019 Drought Contingency Plans

In 2019 the Basin States signed a series of agreements known as the Drought Contingency Plans (DCP). The DCP is often thought of as a single plan for the Lower Basin but the DCP has 4 separate agreements, an overall agreement signed by both basins known also as the "Companion Agreement", two Upper Basin DCP Agreements (Attachments A1 and A2), and a Lower Basin DCP Agreement (Attachment B).

The overall Companion Agreement contains statements of support for the Upper Basin DCP, the Lower Basin DCP, federal legislation to implement the LB and UB DCPs as well as implement Mexico's DCP participation via Minute 323, Section IV in addition to other implementing language.

For the Upper Basin, there are two agreements, the Drought Response Operations Agreement or DROA (Attachment A1 to the Companion Agreement) and a Demand Management Storage Agreement (Attachment A2 to the Companion Agreement) . The Drought Response Operations agreement focusses on actions to keep Lake Powell above elevation 3525'. These actions are triggered by Reclamation's 24-Month study projections for Lake Powell levels. The Demand Management Storage Agreement authorizes the use of up to 500,000 acre-feet of storage in Colorado River Storage Project Act 'Initial Units' (i.e. Glen Canyon, Flaming Gorge, Navajo and Curecanti units) for storing Upper Basin water that could be used assure compliance with the Colorado River Compact. "Demand Management" is a concept that the Upper Basin wants to explore but has yet to be implemented.

For the Lower Basin, there is a Lower Basin Drought Contingency Plan Agreement (Attachment B to the Companion Agreement) . It refers to Exhibit 1, a document entitled "Lower Basin Drought Contingency Operations" (LBOps). The LBOps agreement contains complex rules for when DCP contributions (i.e. delivery reductions) will be made at various Lake Mead elevations. These delivery reductions occur on top of shortages in the 2007 Interim Guidelines.