The Water Information Program

Water experts from across the Western Slope gathered to talk about their nightmare scenario: a legal demand from California, Arizona and Nevada to send more water down the rivers. It's known as a "compact call," and it has never happened since the Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922. The compact governs all of Colorado's Western rivers, including the Animas, Dolores and San Juan, because they flow into the Colorado River. On Thursday, board members from Southwestern Water Conservation District got together with their counterparts from the Colorado River Water Conservation District to discuss this possibility for the first time. Together, the two organizations are charged with protecting all the state's water west of the Continental Divide. Under a compact call, many of water users would have to cut back or shut off their water. It's not clear who would suffer, but the state engineer's office is writing rules to respond to a call. A call is not likely to come for several years, if at all. The state currently uses about 2.4 million acre-feet from the basin, said Eric Kuhn, head of the CRWCD. Once the Animas-La Plata dam opens and Denver fully uses its Western Slope reservoirs, the state could be using 2.6 million acre-feet - possibly everything to which it is legally entitled. If Colorado and the other upriver states used too much, downstream states could sue and force water to go down the river. If that happened, the only solid water supply would belong to Western Slope farmers whose rights date to 1922 or earlier, before the compact was signed.

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