NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
Support for this project was provided by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Agreement No. 2103, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Bureau of Reclamation Contract No. 9-FG-81-15550, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Contract No. 815848-01-O/R, and Ford Foundation Grant No. 890-0807.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Water transfers in the West: efficiency, equity, and the environment / Committee on Western Water Management, Water Science and Technology Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, Board on Agriculture, National Research Council.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-04528-2
1. Water transfer—West (U.S.) 2. Water transfer—Law and legislation—West (U.S.) I. National Research Council (U.S.). Water Science and Technology Board. Committee on Western Water Management.
HD1695.A17W39 1992
333.91'00978—dc20
92-5740
CIP
Copyright © 1992 by the National Academy of Sciences
This book is printed with soy ink on acid-free recycled stock.
Printed in the United States of America
Original cover art by Sally Groom, Washington, D.C.
COMMITTEE ON WESTERN WATER MANAGEMENT
A. DAN TARLOCK, Chair,
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law
D. CRAIG BELL,
Western States Water Council, Midvale, Utah
BONNIE COLBY,
University of Arizona, Tucson
LEO M. EISEL,
Wright Water Engineers, Denver, Colorado
DAVID H. GETCHES,
University of Colorado School of Law, Boulder
THOMAS J. GRAFF,
Environmental Defense Fund, Oakland, California
FRANK GREGG,
University of Arizona, Tucson
R. KEITH HIGGINSON,
Department of Water Resources, Boise, Idaho
MARVIN E. JENSEN,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins
DUNCAN T. PATTEN,
Arizona State University, Tempe
CLAIR B. STALNAKER,
Fish and Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, Colorado
LUIS S. TORRES,
Southwest Research Information Center, Espanola, New Mexico
RICHARD TRUDELL,
American Indian Lawyer Training Program, Inc., Oakland, California
HENRY J. VAUX, JR.,
University of California, Riverside
SUSAN WILLIAMS,
Gover, Stetson, Williams & West, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Liaison to the Board on Agriculture
JAN VAN SCHILFGAARDE,
Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, Maryland
Staff
CHRIS ELFRING, Study Director
ANITA A. HALL, Project Secretary
WYETHA B. TURNEY, Word Processor
ROSEANNE PRICE, Editorial Consultant
FLORENCE POILLON, Editorial Consultant
WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD
DANIEL A. OKUN, Chair,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
A. DAN TARLOCK, Vice Chair,
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law
NORMAN H. BROOKS,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
RICHARD A. CONWAY,
Union Carbide Corporation, South Charleston, West Virginia
KENNETH D. FREDERICK,
Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
DAVID L. FREYBERG,
Stanford University, Stanford, California
WILFORD R. GARDNER,
University of California, Berkeley
DUANE L. GEORGESON,
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Los Angeles
MICHAEL KAVANAUGH, James M. Montgomery Consulting Engineers,
Walnut Creek, California (through 6/30/91)
HOWARD C. KUNREUTHER,
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (through 6/30/91)
ROBERT R. MEGLEN,
University of Colorado, Denver (through 6/30/91)
JUDY L. MEYER,
University of Georgia, Athens
DONALD J. O'CONNOR,
HydroQual, Inc., Mahwah, New Jersey
BETTY H. OLSON,
University of California, Irvine (through 6/30/91)
STAVROS S. PAPADOPULOS,
S. S. Papadopulos & Associates, Inc., Rockville, Maryland
KENNETH W. POTTER,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
P. SURESH C. RAO,
University of Florida, Gainesville (through 6/30/91)
BRUCE E. RITTMANN,
University of Illinois, Urbana
DONALD D. RUNNELLS,
University of Colorado, Boulder
PHILIP C. SINGER,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
HUGO F. THOMAS,
Department of Environmental Protection, Hartford, Connecticut (through 6/30/91)
JAMES R. WALLIS,
IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York (through 6/30/91)
M. GORDON WOLMAN,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
JOY B. ZEDLER,
San Diego State University, San Diego
Staff
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Director
SARAH CONNICK, Staff Officer
SHEILA D. DAVID, Senior Staff Officer
CHRIS ELFRING, Senior Staff Officer
JACQUELINE MACDONALD, Research Associate
JEANNE AQUILINO, Administrative Specialist
PATRICIA CICERO, Secretary
ANITA A. HALL, Administrative Secretary
JOYCE A. SPARROW, Secretary
BOARD ON AGRICULTURE
THEODORE L. HULLAR, Chair,
University of California, Davis
PHILIP H. ABELSON,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.
DALE E. BAUMAN,
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
R. JAMES COOK,
Agricultural Research Service at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
ELLIS B. COWLING,
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
ROBERT M. GOODMAN,
University of Wisconsin and National Research Council Scholar-in-Residence
PAUL W. JOHNSON, Natural Resources Consultant,
Decorah, Iowa
NEAL A. JORGENSEN,
University of Wisconsin, Madison
ALLEN V. KNEESE,
Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
JOHN W. MELLOR,
John Mellor Associates, Inc., Washington, D.C.
DONALD R. NIELSEN,
University of California, Davis
ROBERT L. THOMPSON,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
ANNE M. K. VIDAVER,
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
CONRAD J. WEISER,
Oregon State University, Corvallis
JOHN R. WELSER,
The Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Staff
SUSAN E. OFFUTT, Executive Director
JAMES E. TAVARES, Associate Executive Director
CARLA CARLSON, Director of Communications
BARBARA J. RICE, Editor
The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Frank Press is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Preface
As yet another prolonged drought grips many parts of the arid West, we are once again reminded of the central importance of water. Water is a resource in great demand: beyond the needs of irrigated agriculture —long the biggest water user in the West—we now must ensure water supplies to support urban growth and development, traditional minority cultures, environmental needs, and recreation. We must become more careful in our planning and management so all these many needs can be met equitably and efficiently.
More and more, water transfers are being considered, and used, as a major component of water resource management. As defined in this report, water transfers involve a change in point of diversion, a change in type of use, or a change in location of use. They are a mechanism with great potential to help allocate the West's limited water. But, as is the case with all tools, water transfers can have various effects—sometimes beneficial, sometimes adverse; sometimes intended, sometimes inadvertent.
The Committee on Western Water Management, of the Water Science and Technology Board, has focused its attention on those effects. The committee's purpose was to look at water transfers that have happened or are being discussed and to develop an improved understanding of the nature, scope, and consequences of water transfers, with a special focus on third party effects and environmental quality. Although much of this report discusses these issues in broad terms, the committee also conducted seven case studies to provide examples that show the diversity of participants and impacts.
Water transfers have occurred in the western United States since the initiation of the prior appropriation doctrine. Many have been small scale and relatively routine, but others have been large and controversial. Some of these transfers and proposed transfers have provided the spark for significant controversy in the West. Examples include the Owens Valley transfer in California (dramatically described in the movie Chinatown), transmountain diversions from the Colorado River basin to Denver, and agriculture-to-municipal transfers in Arizona.
It is time to move beyond discussions of whether water transfers in general are good or bad per se. Transfers are a management option that western water managers have historically used along with structural measures to meet demand, and all indications are that transfers will be used with increasing frequency because of cost advantages and flexibility. We need to focus attention, then, on the consequences of such transfers and to think hard about how to encourage the benefits they can provide while minimizing the problems.
Unlike many other commodity transfers, water transfers can have significant positive and negative effects on “third parties”—people, groups, and values beyond the buyers and sellers involved. The law has afforded protection to some of these third parties—such as existing water rights holders not directly involved in the transfer—but not to all. Third party effects include impacts on Indian and other minority populations, effects on regional economic systems, and environmental effects. This report makes suggestions to help increase the usefulness of water transfers in solving water supply problems in the West while ensuring that third party effects are fairly considered and mitigated. Conflicts over water seem an inevitable part of life in an arid environment, but we can take steps to ease these controversies. The committee hopes this report provides some guidance to the many decisionmakers involved.
This report builds on a long National Research Council tradition of addressing the challenges that new demands for water pose in the West. In 1966 the Committee on Water, a forerunner of the Water Science and Technology Board, convened a special committee under the leadership of the distinguished student of water policy, Gilbert F. White, to explore the options available to improve water management in the Colorado River basin. That committee's report, Water and Choice in the Colorado Basin: An Example of Alternatives in Water Management (NAS, 1968), was a masterful survey of nontraditional alternatives for water management in the Colorado basin. The report called for more attention to the expanding equity and environmental demands on the river. It was an eloquent plea for policymakers to
enlarge the range of options that they consider when formulating water resource policy. Specifically, Water and Choice advanced the then-heretical idea that states and the federal government should consider alternatives beyond project construction to stimulate regional growth and should give greater weight to environmental values.
Water and Choice accurately predicted many shifts in water resource policy that did occur in the past 25 years. The construction of new large-scale water projects is no longer central to regional development; the protection of instream uses and the promotion of social equity are now considered legitimate values. As a result, water managers, providers, and users must now seriously consider a wide range of management options such as water transfers to meet their objectives and to promote the twin goals of equity and efficiency. They are no longer theoretical options, as they once were.
Members of the committee would like to thank the many people across the West who met with us and helped us develop our thoughts. We talked with astute representatives of federal agencies, state governments, Indian tribes, environmental groups, agricultural groups, and many other interests. Although the committee takes sole responsibility for the ideas expressed in this report, it could not have completed its effort without this broad spectrum of help. I would also like to thank the project's financial sponsors—the Ford Foundation, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California—for their courage in setting us free to debate such a challenging issue. Finally, I would like to express my profound thanks to the members of the committee. Each approached the task with enthusiasm and dedication. This report is a true peer collaboration and reflects consensus arrived at through mutual learning. The committee expresses special thanks to Wendy Melgin, who steered the project through the planning process before October 1989, and to Chris Elfring, who managed the project from the first case study to the final edit with dedication, humor, and a firm professional hand. Anita Hall and Wyetha Turney provided the staff assistance crucial to a project of this nature, and we thank them.
Some readers of this report may be disappointed that we do not offer a definitive resolution of issues such as which communities should be preserved from external change and which should be subjected to the full discipline of the market. They may be equally disappointed that we do not offer detailed federal and state legislative proposals to facilitate desirable transfers and discourage undesirable ones. Committee members have many different ideas on how to solve the prob-
lems addressed in this report, but our consensus was that at this stage of the transfer debate it would be presumptuous to put forward a menu of any great detail. Rather we hope that this report will shape the debate by highlighting the issues that state and federal governments must address and the possible avenues of approach.
A. Dan Tarlock, Chair
Committee on Western Water Management