The document discusses various administrative tools and mechanisms for managing river flow regimes in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including federal dam operations, programmatic biological opinions, and interstate water banking. It emphasizes the need for compliance with environmental laws while exploring alternatives to traditional water rights protection. Key initiatives include restoring flows in the Colorado River Delta and enhancing collaboration between state and federal agencies to improve water management for ecological benefits.

1. Administrative Tools for
Protecting River Flow Regimes
Robert Wigington
Senior Water Policy Counsel
Colorado River Program
The Nature Conservancy
Managing Rivers for Changing Climes
River Management Society
April 15, 2014

2. Look Mom – No Water Rights
• Re-operating Federal Dams to Comply with the Endangered
Species and National Environmental Policy Acts
• Programmatic Biological Opinions on Water Depletions and
Project Operations in the Upper Colorado River Basin
• Alternatives to Federal Wild & Scenic Determinations on the
Upper Colorado River in Colorado
• Restoring River Flows in the Colorado River Delta in Mexico
through International Agreement
• Improving River Flows through Interstate Water Banking in
the Upper Colorado River Basin

3. Flaming Gorge Dam
Courtesy of USBR

4. Getting Orientated:
Upper Colorado River Basin

5. Re-operating Federal Dams
• The continuing operation of federal dams needs to be
brought into compliance with NEPA and ESA even if the
dams were built before these laws were passed.
• The re-operation of Flaming Gorge dam occurred in a series
of adjustments and flow studies to see what kind of
ecological benefits could be generated by restoring some
aspects of the natural hydrograph.
• This dam re-operation is an example of both an
administrative mechanism to protect river flows and adaptive
management for a large order river.
• The current plan is to add either water right protection under
state water law or flow protection under a federal-state
contract.

6. Courtesy of NRCS
Grand Valley Roller Dam

7. Getting Orientated:
Upper Colorado River Basin

8. Programmatic Biological Opinions
• To avoid triggering consultation under Section 7 of the ESA
on every acre foot of water depletion, state and federal
agencies agreed to protect river flows under state water law.
• When the filings for instream flow water rights were blocked
in state water court, the alternative was to fashion
programmatic biological opinions for major sub-basins that
allowed about the same amount of water depletion.
• These programmatic biological opinions also provided a
framework for coordinating the re-operation of a suite of
federal and non-federal dams to improve flows for
endangered fish recovery, instead of bringing single federal
dams into compliance one at a time.

9. Recommended Reading on the
Programmatic Biological Opinion for
the 15 Mile Reach of the Colorado River
Silk, N., J. MacDonald, R. Wigington. (2000). Turning
instream flow water rights upside down. Rivers 7(4).
Coel-Juell, L. (2005). The 15 mile reach: Let the fish tell
us. In Brunner, R.D. (Ed.), Adaptive Governance,
Integrating Science, Policy and Decision Making (pp.
47-90). New York: Columbia University Press.

10. Courtesy of USBR
Green Mountain Dam

11. Getting Orientated:
Upper Colorado River Basin

12. Alternatives to Wild & Scenic Determinations
• The BLM and USFS are obligated to assess whether rivers
that flow through federally managed lands have values that
make them suitable for W&S designation.
• These administrative suitability determinations have
generated concern in Colorado about what weight they are
given in any federal permitting along or upstream of
suitable reaches.
• Once W&S values are identified in the early stages of
federal resource management planning, an alternative is
to ask if there are ways to protect these values without a
federal reserved water right, federal permitting restrictions,
or officially deciding whether the reach is suitable for
designation.

13. Hoover Dam

14. Morelos Dam
Courtesy of Amy McCoy

15. Getting Orientated:
Upper Colorado River Basin

16. Minute 319: Restoring River Flows in the
Colorado River Delta
• Water users and agencies on both sides of the border will
invest in improving the diversion efficiency of the irrigation
system in the Mexicali Valley, allowing a reduction in the
Treaty deliveries to serve the same irrigated acreage in
Mexico.
• The reduced Treaty deliveries are then recognized as
storage credits in Lake Mead that can be built up and be
delivered back to Mexico and past Morelos dam as a
restorative pulse flow.
• Episodic pulse flows (maybe every 5 years) will be
combined with the purchase or lease of irrigation water
rights in Mexico that are converted to a constant (every
year) supply to sustain riparian restoration.

17. Glen Canyon Dam
Courtesy of Grand Canyon Trust

18. Getting Orientated:
Upper Colorado River Basin

19. Interstate Water Banking
• In the 11th hour of the its recent water supply and demand
study for the Colorado River Basin, the USBR added an
innovative water management solution for water banking at
Lake Powell.
• In modeling this kind of solution, the USBR assumed that
water savings from voluntarily curbing new exports and
energy demands and from temporary cut-backs in existing
irrigation would be shepherded across state lines and
stored at Lake Powell to avoid involuntary curtailment of
Upper Basin depletions to satisfy a compact call.
• This concept is theoretical for now and lacks a clear path
for implementation, but could end up protecting or
improving river flows across the Upper Basin.

20. QUESTIONS
rwigington@tnc.org
303-541-0335