Will Water Help Obama Win Colorado?

John McCain’s recent comments to a Colorado newspaper that a 1922 seven-state agreement governing the use of the Colorado River “obviously needs to be renegotiated over time” may sound completely innocuous, perhaps even sensible, to most people.

But to Colorado voters, McCain might as well have said he likes to eat cute puppies for breakfast. It’s hard to explain to a non-Coloradan the outsized significance of the Colorado River–and its coveted snowmelt water–within the state. “Over my dead body,” Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) said in a statement. To which Republican senate candidate Bob Schaffer added, “Over my cold, dead, political carcass.” Get the point?

In this arid region of the country, rural farmers depend on the river’s water, and after enduring the worst drought since the 18th century in recent years, any notion that Scottsdale golfers and Bellagio gamblers need more water than they’re currently allotted is basically Rule #1 under What Not to Say in Colorado. Just as Yucca Mountain is a nuclear issue in Nevada-pun intended-Coloradans often quote Mark Twain, who’s rumored to have said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over.” Many local pundits in Colorado are already asking whether “McCain just lo[st] Colorado.”

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Source: NewsWeek

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com

McCain now says Western water pact should stand

DENVER – Sen. John McCain has backed off his comment that a key Western water agreement should be renegotiated, but Democrats signaled they plan to pummel him for his remarks, which even Republicans in swing-state Colorado denounced.

The GOP presidential candidate told the Pueblo (Colo.) Chieftain last week that the 1922 Colorado River Compact ought to be “renegotiated over time.” But in a letter Wednesday to Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., McCain wrote that his comments were misconstrued.

“Let me clear that I do not advocate renegotiation of the compact,” the letter said. McCain aides said the letter was e-mailed across the West after even fellow Republicans derided McCain for suggesting the water agreement may need to be retooled.

The Colorado River is one of the most important water sources in the West, and the 1922 compact allocates the river among the lower basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – and the upper basin states – Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

A second agreement signed last year a 2007 was designed to ease tension among the compact states caused by a long-term drought.

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Source: San Diego Union Tribune

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com