Water Shortage Disputes Brewing in the Colorado Basin States

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently joked at an event in Colorado that he was there “to take your water”, a tongue-in-cheek reference to his pronouncements on the need to “renegotiate” the terms of the Colorado River Compact, which determines how much water each of the 7 states in the Colorado Basin can draw from the river. The joke has become fodder for McCain’s opponents, at the national and local level. Colorado’s governor told the press, in a call reportedly organized by the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), that the reference raised serious concerns about the favorability of McCain’s water policies to his state.

Gov. Ritter has said he believes renegotiation would reduce Colorado’s share of the river water, and the mood in Colorado is with him, opposing any attempt to divert more water away from Colorado to the other Basin states. McCain’s campaign has said the joke was just that, a joke, and that he did not mean to alarm neighboring states about his motivations for viewing renegotiation favorably.

Interestingly, there has been a recent agreement between the Basin states on how to deal with extreme drought fairly, given the likely need to rearrange the distribution of water from the river temporarily in such circumstances, and McCain has reportedly not commented on this negotiation. It may be that it would impede his further renegotiation of the underlying laws, or it may be that mentioning it would raise questions about whether it would be considered part of a renegotiation, something that drought-prone states might find even more alarming.

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Source: Casavaria

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