Consider a couple of high-profile western water conflicts in which the Bureau is entangled:

• The Bureau of Reclamation serves as the water manager for the Colorado River Basin, which has the improbable capacity to store four times the river’s annual flow in Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and other storage facilities. Drought conditions over the past decade have dropped the two main reservoirs to about 50 percent of capacity, with annual river flows averaging about 66 percent of the normal levels, and recent studies project that such shortages will become the normal conditions as a result of climate change. Water scarcity combined with population growth have stressed the entire water delivery system and required the federal government to mediate shortage-sharing agreements among seven basin states (Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming). Water providers in Southern Nevada are in the process of building additional, deeper intake pipes to draw water from the shrinking Lake Mead.
• California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where the Bureau operates the enormous Central Valley Project to move water from the wet north part of the state to southern residents, has suffered catastrophic declines of native fish. Combined with low snowmelt in recent winters and accelerating demands for water exports, Delta water supplies have proven inadequate to meet all economic and environmental demands. In a report released earlier this year, an independent review panel concluded that federal water managers have consistently favored farmers over the needs of salmon in failing to implement the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992, a law intended to overhaul the state’s water delivery system and improve the environment. The panel concluded that the Bureau has failed to embrace its mandate for water management (including recovery of anadromous fish) “with equal zeal to its core mission of water supply.” A Biological Opinion issued this month declared that water operations must be dramatically altered to protect the imperiled fish and the Delta ecosystem from imminent collapse.

The Bureau of Reclamation is one of the key water management agencies in the United States, created in 1902 to complete the vision of Manifest Destiny through water storage and delivery projects in the arid 17 states of the western United States. In the past century, the agency constructed more than 600 dams and reservoirs, including the iconic Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, as well as 58 hydroelectric powerplants associated with these projects. The Bureau is the largest wholesaler of water in the country and the second largest provider of hydroelectric power.

After decades focused on moving earth and pouring concrete, the ground shifted under the Bureau of Reclamation in the late 20^th Century. Mounting environmental concerns brought down some projects, while others foundered on more rigorous cost-benefit analyses. By the mid-1980s, the Bureau announced its new mission as a “water management agency” rather than the nation’s dam-builder.

As I described in a previous Science Progress column, former Bureau of Reclamation Area Manager (and Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science) Elizabeth Rieke said this about the changing mandate for federal water projects: “We can build them, operate them, modify them, re-operate them, we can make them safe and secure, and we can take them down.” Indeed, the Bureau has most recently spent a great deal of time studying and implementing dam removal and reoperation practices, reflecting broad public concerns for living rivers reflected in federal legal mandates such as the Endangered Species Act and associated litigation.

Into this imbroglio steps Michael Connor, who most recently served as Counsel for the U.S. Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. In that position, he negotiated legislation to finalize Native American water settlements, provide incentives for energy and water efficiency, and support research into climate change impacts on water resources.

At his first public speech after being sworn in as Commissioner, Connor told an audience at the annual Natural Resources Law Center conference in Boulder, Colorado that the agency must take a lead role in climate adaptation, facing up to the dramatic challenges of reduced snowpack, earlier runoffs, and increased evaporation in a system largely dependent on large dams and reservoirs in arid western landscapes.

“Our water supply is going to be changing. The way that water comes to us is going to be changing. That’s absolutely one of the key challenges that we need to be preparing for,” Connor state, in a quote published in the Durango (Colo.) Herald on June 5, 2009.

Prior to his confirmation, Connor participated in a discussion of the interaction between federal policy and western water management, convened by the Carpe Diem Project in March, 2009. He emphasized the need to integrate energy and water, citing several efforts with which he was involved in the Senate. Connor repeated this theme in his Boulder speech, noting the enormous amount of energy consumed by pumping, moving, and treating water and the large water consumption of many electrical energy production practices. This relationship between water and energy use-nearly invisible to both policy makers and the public for decades of development-has finally started to receive the attention it deserves, thanks to recent publications by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Western Resource Advocates.

It would be a laughable understatement to say that Commissioner Connor has his work cut out for him. A friend responded to my initial summary of Connor’s Boulder speech with the observation that, “I would be puckered in that position.” Connor’s reputation as a calm but persistent problem-solver, his experience with complex federal water disputes, and his ever-present sense of humor will serve him well as he assumes the reins of an agency beset by the sorts of “wicked” problems that call for solutions shaped around uncertain future conditions and require cooperation of parties bearing scars of historical battles.

Sarah Bates, Senior Fellow at the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy at the University of Montana, previously served as Deputy Director for Policy and Outreach at Western Progress. Bates has written extensively on western water law and policy, and serves on the project team of the Carpe Diem Project on western water and climate change.

The Omnibus Public Land Management Act is a collection of 170 different bills that includes the largest expansion of the nation’s Wilderness System in 15 years, as well as special provisions for management of national forests, scenic rivers, and other natural treasures throughout the country.

In signing the bill, President Obama declared his intention to fulfill Teddy Roosevelt’s vision:  “a vision that sees America’s great wilderness as a place where what was and what is and what will be—all are the same; a place where memories are lived and relived; a place where Americans both young and young at heart can freely experience the spirit of adventure that has always been at the heart of the rugged character of America.”

These are lofty sentiments, worthy of a historic moment such as this. But signing this bill is only the first step in addressing the diverse and vexing challenges facing our 700 million-acre public land estate—the approximately one-third of our nation’s landscape owned in common by all Americans. This estate includes national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, and lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Today’s land stewards face uncertainties and conflicts never imagined when Teddy Roosevelt appointed his friend Gifford Pinchot as the first chief of the Forest Service. Imagine their surprise at the responsibilities of modern resource managers to address accelerating energy development, invasions of exotic plant and animal species, fierce recreation conflicts, and hazards posed by sprawling subdivisions in the “wildland-urban interface.”

These challenges are outlined in a recently released report of the National Advisory Board of the Public Land & Resources Law Review at the University of Montana. “A Federal Public Lands Agenda for the 21^st Century” identifies urgent issues and proposes a menu of options to address them (see sidebar). This diverse group represented all points of the political spectrum, including former Clinton and Bush administration officials, academics, and prominent advocates. They agreed that it is time for innovative public lands policies that address the new issues that have arisen this century—climate change, energy development, wildfire concerns, and conflicts between recreation and other resource priorities.

“The American people,” concluded the National Advisory Board, “as trustees of the public lands, have always had a prominent voice in any discussion about the future of these lands and resources. We hope to engage them, through the new administration and the next Congress, in this important and perhaps overdue conversation.”

Others are calling for a reinvigorated conversation about public lands as well, and are not hesitating to offer their own suggestions of new directions to address these pressing issues. Here’s a sampler:

• In an article in Ecology Law Currents, a group of public land law experts convened by the California Center for Environmental Law and Policy identify 10 key public land issues demanding attention from the new administration, urging President Obama to “move beyond the traditional clashes between environmentalists and industry, restore balance to the management of the federal public lands, and give a more powerful voice to the local communities that live near and depend upon the federal lands for far more than just their livelihood.”
• A report released by the Western Landscape Conservation Series in Northern Arizona just before the November presidential election summarized ideas presented by leading scholars of public land policy in a seminar series hosted earlier in 2008. “Conservation and sound stewardship depend on an integrated, landscape-scale perspective to drive appropriate policy,” the report argues. “No longer can public lands management proceed in a piecewise manner, with different states, communities, and public agencies acting independently, limiting their focus to particular resources or jurisdictional boundaries.” The recommendations in this report are organized around the broad themes of water, forests, and tribal partnerships.
• A gathering in the winter of 2006 sparked publication of a report focused on Forest Service reform, available for purchase in hard copy only from the Center for the Rocky Mountain West. The contributing authors of “Challenges Facing the U.S. Forest Service: A Critical Review” don’t agree on everything, but editor Daniel Kemmis concludes that their commentaries “present a compelling case that the now well-established practice of on-the-ground collaboration across ideological lines is the best hope for the future of the public lands.” He argues that the diverse issues facing public land managers warrant a hard look at the institutional structures within which they operate—including the possibility of merging the Forest Service (now within the U.S. Department of Agriculture) with the Bureau of Land Management and the other public resource agencies housed in the U.S. Department of the Interior.  That perennial suggestion was the subject of a hearing before the House Appropriations Committee last month, as well as the focus of a related GAO report.

What conclusions can we draw from these (and other) pronouncements on public land policy reform? It is interesting to note that all these groups identified the lack of a coherent mission for public land management—a clearly articulated set of public values for which these lands have been retained in trust for future generations—as an obstacle for rational planning, development decisions, and conflict resolution. Consistent, too, are calls for progressive fire management policies, meaningful engagement of affected communities in development proposals, and proactive steps to deal with the predicted impacts of climate change.

Perhaps we are ready to recognize that our public lands—this great reservoir of biological diversity, connectivity, and renewal—are more than the sum of their exploitable resources. President Obama has an opportunity to fulfill the promise of his presidential campaign by moving boldly to protect and restore the integrity of our public lands and the institutions that govern them. After all, this is the landscape that Wallace Stegner so famously described as “the native home of hope.”

Sarah Bates is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy (formerly the Public Policy Research Institute) at the University of Montana, where she serves as an advisor to the National Advisory Board and the student organizers of the annual Public Land Law Conference. She previously served as the Deputy Director of Policy and Outreach at Western Progress, and has written extensively on natural resources law and policy.

Water shortages are all measured in relation to the choices we make about how we use this resource.

Granted, we are periodically reminded that water is a limited resource. In recent years, residents of Georgia learned that their water supplies might not be up to the challenge of meeting projected growth demands. California’s Governor Schwarzenegger recently declared a statewide drought emergency. And, although this year’s snowpack has relieved the Colorado River system’s most immediate shortages, thirsty cities such as Las Vegas continue their quest for distant and increasingly expensive water supplies.

Last May, the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing on “Water Supply Challenges for the 21st Century,” which included thoughtful testimony from one of the lead authors of last year’s influential report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Drought is not a purely physical phenomenon,” remarked Dr. Roger Pulwarty, “but is an interplay between water availability and the needs of humans and the environment.”

In other words, water shortages are all measured in relation to the choices we make about how we use this resource. And, as with all value-laden public policy choices, science and technology will not tell us how to make our decisions. But improved scientific understanding and a broader array of technology tools can help us sort through the challenges of water management and allocation.

In response to these and other observations about water supply challenges, Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah introduced H.R. 3957, which would establish a research, development, and demonstration program within the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development aimed at encouraging water conservation and efficiency improvements. The bill passed the House and was referred to the Senate at the end of July.

The EPA recently concluded a public comment period on its National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change. In comments submitted to the agency and outlined in a previous Science Progress column, Western Progress praised the report’s acknowledgment of the important role that water conservation will play in both mitigating the production of greenhouse gases and in adapting to the changes already underway as a result of climate change. Thus, it is encouraging to see congressional movement to give a boost to the agency’s work on this subject.

Another piece of legislation, currently in discussion draft, would attempt to coordinate federal water research efforts through establishment of an interagency committee charged with implementing a “National Water Research and Development Initiative.” Introduced by Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the bill would provide additional support for increasing water supplies through greater efficiency and conservation.

Calls for conservation and efficiency improvements are not new, but the pressures to stretch our limited water resources are becoming more intense as we face the dual challenges of population growth and climate change. The private sector is responding with innovative new technologies to reclaim wastewater and treat brackish groundwater for domestic uses. It only makes sense that the federal government steps up to encourage and, in some cases, mandate improvements that meet growing human needs while protecting the important values of water in our environment.

Sarah Bates is the deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a nonpartisan regional policy institute dedicated to advancing progressive policy solutions for the Rocky Mountain West. She has written extensively on western water and natural resources law and policy, and was a contributing writer to the congressionally chartered Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission.

This year, after a late snowpack and cooler temperatures that delayed the annual melt, Rocky Mountain rivers are flowing a little higher and cooler than last year, so perhaps the trout are a little more cheerful. But anyone following the growing scientific consensus on climate change impacts on western rivers has to be concerned that the long-term trends are not good for western trout and the coldwater rivers that sustain them. (See the sidebar for a summary of projected impacts.)

Two reports released last week highlight significant changes already underway in this region. The first, “Low Flows, Hot Trout,” focuses on the Clark Fork River basin, of which the Blackfoot is an important tributary. Produced by the Missoula-based Clark Fork Coalition in partnership with National Wildlife Federation, this report features compelling stories from individuals living and working in the river basin, describing how changes in snowpack, runoff, and stream temperatures will limit their economic, recreational, and other opportunities. “Low Flows, Hot Trout” was featured in a recent column in the Rocky Mountain West’s leading online news source, Headwaters News.

The second report, “Trout in Trouble,” emerged from a partnership between the Natural Resources Defense Council and Montana Trout Unlimited. It describes similar impacts throughout the interior West, and suggests both policy reform and specific steps anglers can take to reduce their impacts on coldwater fish.

These publications are significant for their approach as well as for their important messages. Most commonly, conservation groups present the threats of climate change with a wide angle of reference. We often hear how difficult it is to project impacts on the finer scales necessary to know the specific changes coming in any given river basin. Unfortunately, when the impacts come across as global or continental in scale, individuals may have trouble relating to what it means for them or the lands and waters they know and enjoy. It is easy to be paralyzed by inaction when the problem seems too big to tackle, or when one’s own role in responding appears insignificant.

For the past year or so I’ve been participating in a collaborative group called Carpe Diem: Western Water and Climate Change, which has explored both policy options and messaging opportunities to bridge scientific knowledge and political responses. In our regional gatherings in Seattle and Albuquerque, we were impressed with the value of local knowledge, the power of storytelling, and the need to combine both to compel effective action.

These two new reports address this need, in complementary and mutually reinforcing ways. “Low Flows, Hot Trout” introduces us to the people who live in one western watershed and illustrates their connection to high-quality, living rivers. While acknowledging the uncertainties of regional climate change science, it makes a strong case for acting now on what we do know and what we can observe. Similarly, “Trout in Trouble” takes the compelling message about climate change impacts and western water presented in last year’s “In Hot Water” and applies it to specific western rivers, looking at innovative measures to save and restore trout habitats in a warming, drying region.

In short, this is the kind of information we need—straightforward, factual, and identified with known people and places—in order to build a constituency for action on climate change.

But, although reports such as these are critical steps in sparking citizens to demand policy change, we also need to be talking with our political leaders about the necessary next steps. Thus, it is encouraging that advocates and policy makers will gather this fall at a results-oriented workshop on water and climate change in the northern Rockies states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. The Headwaters Summit, which will take place in Missoula, Mont. on Sept. 15-17, will address opportunities for outreach, incentives, and policy change. Participants will share strategies, resources, and discuss possible partnerships to deal with shared challenges.

Even if all the recommended mitigation measures are implemented immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the changes already underway will continue to impact water-challenged western states. So, while taking every possible step to reverse climate change, the time is ripe to look at changes in water and land use policies and management practices to deal with both the impacts that will come and those already underway. We owe it to the frowning trout in the Blackfoot River, and we owe it to future generations who deserve healthy, flowing rivers for centuries to come.

Sarah Bates is the deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a nonpartisan regional policy institute dedicated to advancing progressive policy solutions for the Rocky Mountain West. She also serves on the board of the Clark Fork Coalition. Western Progress, Clark Fork Coalition, and National Wildlife Federation are jointly organizing the Headwaters Summit referenced here.

The national glove box is already crammed full of road maps for our waterways.

Among the proposals already in the hopper is a congressional bill that would create a new national water commission or, more precisely, the “21st Century Water Commission.” Introduced by Rep. John Linder (R-GA), H.B. 135 moved out of House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Water and Environment in May, and has the support of Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who introduced companion legislation in that chamber.

Linder’s bill would establish a nine-person commission with a $9 million budget and a three-year deadline to assess the nation’s water availability and demands, with a focus on the pressure points of the country in which fast-growing populations are encountering drought and other supply constraints. The legislation explicitly would not create new national water policy, but would provide data, financial incentives, and strategies for stronger and farther-looking state policies. Comparing the initiative to the interstate highway system of the last century, Rep. Linder proclaimed this bill a first step toward “a roadmap that states can use to form their water policy.”

The national glove box is already crammed full of road maps for our waterways. As Steve Malloch of the National Wildlife Federation remarked at a water policy meeting in New Mexico in May, “We’re long on good policy; we’re short on good politics.” What we need is movement on key state and federal policy reforms (see sidebar) to combat the most important factors affecting our nation’s water resources—rapid growth in dry regions and global warming.

Since the last National Water Commission completed its work, culminating in a well-researched and prescient report published in 1973, “Water Policies for the Future,” subsequent gatherings of experts—many focused on the arid West—have produced library shelves full of reports and white papers reaching remarkably consistent conclusions. For a summary of these policy recommendations and an analysis of the most promising areas for reform today, see the Western Progress report, “A New Western Water Agenda.”

Many of the most urgently needed reforms in water policy will take place in state legislatures or at the local (county, municipality) level. But federal policies can encourage improvements through a combination of incentives and regulation.

At a hearing last November, for example, water experts such as the Pacific Institute’s Peter Gleick and National Wildlife Federation’s David Conrad testified in favor of convening a new national water commission to address a wider array of concerns than is currently captured in mandates of H.B. 135. Responding to these suggestions, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) offered an amendment to H.B. 135 that would increase the size and budget for the commission, and (most importantly) charge it with analysis of the effects of climate change on our water resources.

In a May 12 blog for the American Water Resources Association, Michael “Aquadoc” Campana, praised these amendments as improvements to the commission proposed by H.B. 135. The director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University and master of the informative and entertaining Waterwired web site, Campana called the bill a “long overdue start” at achieving a national water strategy.

These are all important issues that deserve attention. But the question remains. Do we need a new commission to revisit these questions? Or do we need to look more seriously at how we might mobilize the political will to implement the remarkably consistent menu of ideas that has already emerged from such gatherings of water experts over the past several decades?

At a Natural Resources Law Center conference in Boulder, CO last month, Lewis & Clark Law Professor Jan Neuman reviewed this body of work and concluded that the arsenal of ideas for water policy reform is virtually complete. Rather than pour money and time into a new federal commission, she suggested—with tongue only partly in cheek—that Congress should re-issue the 1973 National Water Commission report with a new chapter on climate change—and then focus its energies on implementation rather than further study.

As a contributing writer to the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission’s report (and a participant in a few other smaller initiatives along these lines), I can attest that these processes are cumbersome, political, and cumulative. I find Neuman’s arguments compelling and provocative.

While a new national water commission could undoubtedly shed new light on old water problems—particularly the effects of climate change on limited water resources—progressives must step up early and remain engaged throughout the process to make sure this investment pays off in positive policy reform rather than more shelf art.

Whatever the outcome of this November’s election, it is clear that voters are interested in real change and practical solutions. Let’s start with some movement on water policy—not more talk, but long-overdue reforms to move us toward a national goal of sustainability.

Sarah Bates is the deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a nonpartisan regional policy institute dedicated to advancing progressive policy solutions for the Rocky Mountain West. She has written extensively on natural resources law and policy.

This question vexes more than water managers. It may seem absurd to approve development without reliable water supplies, but that is exactly what has happened in many communities—leaving homeowners and other taxpayers holding the bill when extravagant measures become necessary to gain access to water.

Just as homeowners demand, and building codes require, safe wiring and solid foundations for their dwellings, they also deserve to know that their drinking water taps will deliver clean, reliable water for decades to come. Moreover, states are currently reckoning with the question of what happens when there is little water left to manage—two weeks ago, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought.

The failure to connect land-use and water planning may have far-reaching and increasingly unacceptable consequences.

Historically, land-use decisions and water planning have been treated as entirely separate issues. Water is allocated by state agencies, and land-use planning falls under the authority of local officials. Water resource managers juggle many competing demands within a watershed, and they tend to focus on facilitating economic development. In turn, local land-use authorities have safely assumed that water would be available to satisfy continued growth.

Increasingly, however, local land-use decisions run headlong into water supply concerns. Planning for growth is important in all communities, and planning for sustainable water supplies to support that growth should be an integral part of that planning process. Although water itself seldom provides a hard barrier to growth, the failure to connect land-use and water planning may have far-reaching and increasingly unacceptable consequences.

In some cases, existing uses are depleting finite water supplies, raising questions about their future reliability. For example, in some fast-growing rural areas of Arizona, recently constructed houses draw water from wells that the state engineer’s office has certified as “not reliable” due to insufficient underground supplies. Some new homeowners did not realize the tenuous nature of their water supplies and have been forced to deepen their wells or construct cisterns and pay for trucked-in water.

Elsewhere, officials are beginning to face the high social, environmental, and economic costs of obtaining water to meet rising urban demands. Urban growth around Phoenix, Denver, and Boise has been fueled by voluntary, market-based reallocation of water from farms to cities. But public outcry over Las Vegas’ long reach into rural Nevada may indicate renewed concerns over the impacts of large-scale water transfers, both on the rural communities from which the water is taken and on the pocketbooks of the consumers receiving it.

With the recently enacted H.B. 1141, the Colorado General Assembly took an important first step in ensuring such reliable water supplies for new development. This law creates a new tool for local governments to determine whether development projects can demonstrate that the proposed water supply is adequate to meet the project’s water supply demands. It gives local governments the authority to deny developments without adequate water supplies, but the local governments retain discretion to decide whether to authorize development.

In addition to the steps prescribed by the Colorado legislature, a number of other policy levers could be employed to provide a better handle for water-conscious land use decisions. The Colorado bill does not, for example, assign any time horizon to the supply requirement, but simply looks at the possible peak daily, monthly and yearly demands at projected build-out levels of development. Other states, including Arizona and California, require such “assured supplies” for 50- to 100-year planning horizons, although each state has significant exceptions built into the requirements.

What would an ideal assured-supply law look like? According to Utah law professor Lincoln Davies, such a law would be: (1) mandatory; (2) stringent; (3) statewide; (4) broadly applicable, applying to more than just large projects; and (5) interconnected with broader planning mechanisms for land, water, and environmental protection. Thus far, no state statute meets all these criteria, though the legislation enacted in California in 2001 comes closest.

Acting under the mandate of the 2001 laws, last year the California Supreme Court halted a mixed-use development in the Sacramento area on the grounds that the decision was not based on enough information about the plan for long-term water supplies to serve the development. A more recent Riverside County Superior Court decision in January followed that line of thinking and denied a large development based on a failure to demonstrate adequate water supplies.

A recent New York Times story about growth in persistently drought-stricken California quoted local and state water managers and Governor Schwarzenegger, all of whom remarked that unreliable water supplies are delaying new development and thus destabilizing the state’s powerful economy. The San Diego civil grand jury went further in a report issued in February with the attention-grabbing title “Sober Up, San Diego. The Water Party is Over,” concluding that permanent, mandatory conservation measures would be necessary to accommodate the realities of squeezing lots of people into an arid landscape.

Such strong public statements remain the exception rather than the rule, but the trend is clearly toward taking a harder look at water supplies before approving new development. Western expansion has long relied on the promise of abundant and cheap water—a myth that is already shattered in many communities and is sure to be exposed as false in many more in the decades to come.

The solution to our dilemma goes beyond linking water and land-use planning, but we can no longer be indifferent to the environmental and other costs of developing water to meet projected needs. In taking the first step and thinking more deliberately about water demands of growth, assured-supply laws represent an important step toward living sustainably in this spectacular—and fundamentally dry—western landscape.

Sarah Bates is the deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a nonpartisan regional policy institute dedicated to advancing progressive policy solutions for the Rocky Mountain West. She has written extensively on the legal and policy options for linking land use and water planning in western states.

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Restoring the Waters, by Sarah Bates

The rivers are rising as spring arrives in the Rocky Mountain West. In the annual pattern that sustains the environment and much of the economy of this region, water generated from melting snow feeds the streams, soaks the soil, and is diverted into ditches and reservoirs to serve millions of people and water their landscape. Here at the crown of the continent, the snowcapped peaks are far more than a pretty picture—they are an interest-bearing savings account we draw on throughout the year.

Unfortunately, the principal of this account is being depleted by the increasingly obvious impacts of global climate change. Even this winter’s abundant snowfall fails to overcome decades-long trends of increased temperatures and altered patterns of precipitation and spring runoff. The latest documentation of these impacts is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change.

The EPA, which is seeking public comment on the report by June 10, 2008*, provides an overview of the effects of observed and projected climate change on national water resources, with a focus on water quality and aquatic species. The draft National Water Program Strategy offers a whopping 46 “key actions” that the federal agency proposes to implement in response, ranging from water and energy conservation incentives to new and modified water quality regulatory programs. The proposed national actions are organized into four major goals:

• Use water programs to contribute to greenhouse gas mitigation
• Work with states and tribes to adapt water programs to projected new conditions due to climate change
• Strengthen the link between water programs and research activities
• Educate water professionals and stakeholders about projected climate change impacts on water resources.

Like many reports on water issues from Washington, however, the EPA’s National Water Program Strategy offers precious little detail about the projected conditions and appropriate policy responses to those projected conditions for the arid West. In part, this is explained by the frustrating lack of regional- or local-scaled modeling to project more accurately the effects of climate change on our western river basins and watersheds. The EPA proposes further work to better define projected conditions and responsive policies in particular regions of the country, including special attention to issues of drought and water supply in the West.

The world’s leading climate change research consortium, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is working to produce the finer-scaled regional models that will inform the EPA in this follow-up work. In the meantime, the IPCC’s 2007 report documented substantial changes already underway in the western United States, among them:

• Earlier runoff of snowmelt, stressing some reservoir systems
• Decreased spring and summer snow cover
• Increased annual precipitation falling as rain rather than snow
• Threats to reliable supply complicated by high population growth rates in western states where many water resources are at or approaching full utilization
• Increased wildfire potential
• Lowered levels of streamflow, which has already decreased by about 2 percent per decade in the central Rocky Mountain region over the last century
• Additional stress from decreased recharge to heavily utilized groundwater-based systems in the Southwest

Given these significant changes, the most pertinent sections of the EPA’s National Water Program Strategy propose actions that would stretch our limited water resources further through federal and state policies to encourage or require water conservation, re-use, and efficiency improvements. It is particularly encouraging to see the EPA emphasize the link between water and energy use—a notable sign of progress since the Natural Resources Defense Council exposed the astounding amount of energy consumed by water infrastructure in its 2004 report, Energy Down the Drain.

The EPA’s National Water Program Strategy characterizes water conservation both as a mitigation measure for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and as an important adaptation to drier conditions in the future. And the EPA is not the only federal agency that recognizes the important link between water and energy. In a report just released by the U.S. Department of Energy that analyzed a scenario in which 20 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated from wind power by the year 2030, the DOE noted that such a shift would reduce water use by approximately 8 percent. That’s a significant savings, roughly equal to the average share of western water withdrawals claimed by urban users.

The EPA’s National Water Program Strategy also acknowledges an important new way of thinking about our water and the rest of our environment in the face of what appear to be permanently shifting baseline conditions. The increasingly common droughts and extreme weather conditions will inevitably redefine what is “normal” as climate conditions continue to change. The EPA refers to this as a shifting “natural reference,” by which it means emerging dynamic conditions today challenge all of our assumptions about what to expect in terms of stream flows, seasonal temperature patterns, and just about every other reference point that has until now been based on conditions in the past.

This is an important point, similar to the message in a short but pointed essay published in the February 1, 2008 issue of Science, “Stationarity is Dead: Whither Water Management?” The authors caution policymakers against making “grand investments” in new water infrastructure without acknowledging the realities of “an uncertain and changing environment.” Their caution is well advised.

The annual onset of the Rocky Mountain snowmelt will continue to nurture welcome growth and renewal, but the seasonal changes may look very different to our children and grandchildren. It is encouraging to see the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledge the explicit effects of climate change on our precious water resources. It is essential to hold the agency accountable for implementing the action items outlined in its National Water Program Strategy, and to provide sufficient financial resources to support the additional regulatory, education, and research initiatives called for in this report.

Sarah Bates has written extensively on western water law and policy. She currently serves as deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a regional policy institute with offices in Missoula, Mont., Denver, Colo. and Phoenix, Ariz.

Western Progress seeks to establish sustainable water policies for the Rocky Mountain West that reflect the capacity of our water supply in the face of growth and climate change. Current projects focus on improving state in-stream flow protection programs, integrating land-use and water planning, and encouraging urban water conservation and re-use.

Update: The original end date for the comment period was March 27. It has now been extended to June 10.

But the fact that our monumental western water infrastructure has hurt the environment is old news.

These dams and their extensive water distribution facilities fueled an engine of growth and prosperity that drew millions to the region. The dams on the Colorado River, for example, are capable of storing four years’ worth of river flow. Problem is, the very infrastructure that makes the desert bloom has nearly destroyed the river’s native fishery and has fundamentally altered the ecosystem it supports.

The same is true across the region. Damaged rivers and wetlands, endangered fish and wildlife, and impaired communities and economies that rely on healthy, intact river systems are commonplace today. But the fact that our monumental western water infrastructure has hurt the environment is old news. The good news is the vast amount of work that is now underway to restore the region’s rivers and their associated natural and human communities—developments that are not so well known.

We are, in fact, already well embarked upon a 21^st century progressive era in the American West—one in which the federal agencies once known for the cubic yards of concrete they poured are now directing increasingly significant resources to restore rivers, wetlands, and riparian corridors. This is an encouraging movement, and one worth celebrating, encouraging, and publicly embracing.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, for example, got its start in 1902 in the same burst of legislation that gave rise to the Newlands Irrigation Project, which diverted water from the Truckee River near the California-Nevada border to irrigate high-elevation desert farms. Unfortunately, the water flowing to Newlands depleted the river’s historical terminus, Pyramid Lake. Eventually, lake levels fell by 75 to 80 feet, nearly wiping out the native fish populations and thus preventing the Pyramid Lake Paiutes, whose reservation surrounds the lake, from exercising their historical fishing rights.

Decades later, following lawsuits and lengthy negotiations, Congress enacted in 1990 the Truckee-Carson Settlement Act, which directed the Bureau of Reclamation and other parties—including the states of California and Nevada, other federal agencies, the Paiute tribe, and private water interests—to find new ways to work together to restore the river, the lake, and the fisheries. This has proved to be a challenging mandate, but today an impressive multi-party restoration initiative is well under way.

The West’s great water projects can be harnessed in new ways to benefit a broader range of public values.

The manager of this project for the Bureau of Reclamation, Elizabeth Rieke, previously served as the assistant secretary of water and science for the U.S. Department of the Interior. She possesses a keen grasp of federal water policy. Commenting on the changing mandates for federal water projects at a conference sponsored by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in 2005, Rieke remarked: “We can build them, operate them, modify them, re-operate them, we can make them safe and secure, and we can take them down.”

Her message, in short, was that the same technical expertise that erected the West’s great water projects can be harnessed in new ways to benefit a broader range of public values.

For its part, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—the agency responsible for constructing the largest flood-control dams in the nation—has embraced environmental protection and restoration as explicit objectives of its water resource management mission. In one example of its commitment to this new direction, the Corps entered into a “Sustainable Rivers” partnership with The Nature Conservancy in 2002 aimed at improving dam management to restore ecological health in the affected rivers.

River restoration projects are proliferating throughout the Rocky Mountain West. In some cases this means that dams are coming out of the rivers they once plugged. More commonly, federal agencies are operating dams in new ways to re-create historical downstream river conditions. In many places, restoration means putting the curves back into artificially straightened rivers, replacing riprap (stone or rubble dumped along river shores to combat erosion) with native vegetation to secure the banks, and “daylighting” rivers once buried in steel culverts under urban centers.

Just days ago, on March 28, onlookers cheered as Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer declared, “Let ’er run,” and a large bulldozer breached the Milltown Dam, a few miles upstream from Missoula, Mont. (To view a compelling video of the event, click here.) Today, the waters of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers run free for the first time in 100 years.

Another measure of success: A large Superfund cleanup project at the rivers’ confluence is underway to remove tons of contaminated sediment that flowed downstream from copper mines in Butte and stacked up behind the Milltown Dam, polluting the drinking water of nearby residents. The costs of such cleanups can be high, but the benefits can be enormous. Restoration work itself provides jobs for skilled laborers and professionals. The Milltown Dam removal near Missoula, Mont., for example, currently employs about 80 people, ranging from heavy equipment operators to engineers and scientists.

Beyond the initial work, river restoration offers long-term benefits, too, through enhanced property values, new commercial and recreational opportunities, and a variety of environmental goods and services—such as minimizing floods and erosion and protecting water quality and soil fertility. Indeed, eventually every dam or water delivery facility reaches the end of its useful life—filling with silt, developing leaks or otherwise requiring expensive rehabilitation or even reconstruction in order to continue operation—which means these kinds of projects will remain a staple of 21^st century progressive water management.

According to one study, concerns about public safety or the costs of repair are more frequently the reasons for dam removal than a desire to restore natural ecosystem functions or bring back historic fisheries. But on a broader scale, western water policy is shifting to reflect public values for environmental protection, water-based recreation, and urban greenways. And none too soon, in light of the projected impacts of climate change: higher temperatures throughout the region; reduced precipitation in the driest parts; and shifting runoff patterns that will make even less water available during the season in which it’s needed most.

A recent report by the non-partisan public policy institute Western Progress recommended policy reforms to respond to the challenge of “how to meet increasing water demands associated with a growing population with a fully committed but less secure water supply,” in light of projected impacts from climate change. I highlighted these ideas with some additional analysis in a recent series of columns in Headwaters News.

Like the reclamation projects of the last century, today’s restoration initiatives represent an investment in the future, with long-term benefits for both the environment and its human inhabitants. By recognizing the value of this work and encouraging it through more explicit public policies, we can ensure a healthier and more prosperous future for all. That is the heart of a new progressive movement for the Rocky Mountain West.

Sarah Bates has written extensively on western water law and policy. She currently serves as deputy director for policy and outreach at Western Progress, a regional policy institute with offices in Missoula, Mont., Denver, Colo. and Phoenix, Ariz.