Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Colorado River species plan signed

Environmentalists say program is not true conservation

Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy hails the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program, which was signed into effect Monday. Photo by Clint Karlsen.

With the curved wall of Hoover Dam towering above them Monday, top water officials and federal agency chiefs gathered to launch a new multistate program designed to protect habitat and ensure continued use of the Colorado River for water and power generation.

"This agreement will begin the largest river restoration effort that has ever been undertaken in this country," said Dale Hall, regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

More than 10 years in the making, the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program provides protections for sensitive plants and animals along more than 400 miles of the river, from the western end of the Grand Canyon to the U.S.-Mexico border. At the same time, it allows massive future water transfers among Nevada, Arizona and California.

But environmental groups already are condemning the program, which they see as conservation in name only.

"While the MSCP may have the word 'conservation' in its title, it is more form than substance," said Kara Gillon, staff attorney for the Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife. "It's mitigation at best, not forward progress."

Over the next 50 years, the multistate agreement will direct the restoration of more than 8,100 acres of habitat for six threatened or endangered species and at least 20 other plants and animals native to the river.

As many as 620,000 Bonytails and 660,000 Razorback suckers, two federally protected fish species, could be released into the river under the program.

"We hope, frankly, we don't have to stock that many with the habitat that's being created," the Fish and Wildlife Service's Hall said.

The $626 million price tag for the program will be shared by the states and the federal government, with Nevada's total share topping out at $78.3 million over the next 50 years.

"We know it's going to be expensive," said Richard Bunker, chairman of Nevada's Colorado River Commission. "But in the long term, it's a great legacy to leave for our children and our grandchildren."

"This river is more than just a water delivery system," added Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

About 90 percent of the water used in Southern Nevada comes from the Colorado River.

Mulroy said the new conservation program provides blanket environmental-compliance coverage for the whole lower basin. That will release the water authority from some of the expensive and time-consuming environmental studies that otherwise would be required for any new infrastructure projects at Lake Mead, she said.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton signed the program's key documents in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

The last few environmental permits needed to allow the program to proceed were signed during Monday's ceremony, which Norton could not attend because of the death of her mother-in-law.

There in her stead was Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson, who called the multistate agreement "the largest, longest-term and most innovative partnership for (river) habitat restoration in the history of the United States. There is simply no comparable program in the nation."

But environmentalist Michael Cohen said the chosen backdrop for Monday's ceremony points to the program's real objective: "protecting irrigators and power companies rather than protecting the birds and fish and trees that are disappearing because of the damage done to the Colorado River."

"In fact, this plan is worse than doing nothing because it effectively closes the door on meaningful lower Colorado River restoration for 50 years," said Cohen, senior associate for the Pacific Institute, an Oakland, Calif.-based environmental think-tank.

Longtime Arizona politician Herb Guenther disagreed. The trained wildlife biologist and chairman of Arizona's Water Banking Authority board said he thinks the program strikes just the right balance between those who don't care about the environment and "those who would like to see the river the way it was."

As for the setting of Monday's ceremony, Guenther said, no place could have been more appropriate. After all, taming the Colorado River and diverting its water is what allowed California, Arizona and Nevada to flourish, he said.

"You're looking at the birthplace of the Southwest."