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66–455 PDF 2011

S. HRG. 112–16 

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE CHANGE 

ON WATER RESOURCES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

TO

RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON THE CURRENT DROUGHT CONDITIONS AFFECTING NEW MEXICO AND THE STATUS OF REPORTS TO BE ISSUED 

PURSUANT TO SECTIONS 9503 AND 9506 OF THE SECURE WATER ACT 

REGARDING A REVIEW OF THE CURRENT SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON WATER RESOURCES AND AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH 

CLIMATE CHANGE ON WATER RESOURCES IN CERTAIN RIVER BASINS 

SANTA FE, NM, APRIL 27, 2011 

( 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

MARK UDALL, Colorado 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOE MANCHIN, III, West Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

DANIEL COATS, Indiana 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

ROBERT M. SIMON, Staff Director 

SAM E. FOWLER, Chief Counsel 

MCKIE CAMPBELL, Republican Staff Director 

KAREN K. BILLUPS, Republican Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

Page 

Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator From New Mexico ........................................ 1 

Connor, Hon. Michael, Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation ........................... 19 

DuBois, David, New Mexico State Climatologist, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM ........................................................................................... 3 

Hurd, Brian H., Associate Professor, Agricultural Economics, New Mexico 

State University, Las Cruces, NM ...................................................................... 37 

Lopez, Esteven, Director, NM Interstate Stream Commission ............................ 6 

Newman, Corbin L., Jr., Regional Forester, Southwestern Region, Forest 

Service, Department of Agriculture .................................................................... 11 

Overpeck, Jonathan, Co-Director, Institute of the Environment, Professor of 

Geosciences, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Arizona .. 30 

APPENDIX 

Additional material submitted for the record ........................................................ 51 

(1) 

DROUGHT AND CLIMATE CHANGE 

ON WATER RESOURCES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES, Santa Fe, NM. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m., at Santa Fe 

Convention and Visitors Center, Hon. Jeff Bingaman, chairman, 

presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. 

SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all for being here. This is a hearing 

of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It’s a field 

hearing. The hearing is to focus on two related subjects. Let me, 

before I really get into this, give a little description of what we’re 

going to try to do here or talk about. 

Let me thank the city of Santa Fe for allowing us to use this 

wonderful facility. Councilor Bushee is here. Where is she? I saw 

her here earlier. Thank you for being here and thanks for letting 

us use this. City Manager Robert Romero is here. We appreciate 

him being here and the use of the facility as well and all the rest 

of the city council and the mayor. 

The hearing will focus on two related subjects. First we’ll hear 

about the serious drought conditions that are now affecting New 

Mexico. Despite receiving a little moisture over the past few days 

at least in some parts of the State, the majority of the State is experiencing a severe drought that has impacted irrigation and municipal and environmental water supplies. 

The current Drought Monitor maps indicate that no part of New 

Mexico is without impacts. The southern one-third of the State is 

experiencing extreme drought conditions, having had little or no 

rainfall for several months. 

Below normal precipitation and snow pack resulted in flows in 

the Rio Grande that are forecast to be 39 percent of normal. 

Irrigators will have to use more water from storage this year than 

was otherwise expected. 

Some municipalities such as the city of Las Vegas will come close 

to using up a majority of their existing supplies. Environmental 

flows will also be impacted because of the natural flows in many 

of the State’s stream systems being reduced. 

Challenges due to an increased population, environmental demands, and climate change as well are present even during our 

normal water years. The drought conditions that we’re experi-
2 

encing at this time make the ongoing stresses even more difficult 

to manage. 

The current drought provides an incentive for New Mexicans to 

continue the collaborative efforts that already exist in many basins. 

For example, water users will have to work together with the Bureau of Reclamation this year to meet the flow requirements called 

for in the Biological Opinion for the endangered silvery minnow in 

the Lower Rio Grande area. 

Communities throughout the State will need to continue to engage in water planning activities and water conservation efforts. 

Cooperative efforts such as water banking and shortage sharing 

agreements will be essential tools to help communities maintain 

economic stability even in times of drought. 

Maintaining cooperation between Federal, State, and local entities to address emergency situations such as fires will be all the 

more important. So I’m looking forward to hearing testimony on all 

of the efforts that are underway to address the current drought situation. That will be the subject primarily of our first panel. 

The second panel of witnesses will focus on the impacts of climate change on water supplies and will highlight a report issued 

by the Bureau of Reclamation earlier this week in response to the 

SECURE Water Act requirement that Congress enacted in 2009. 

I would just say for purposes of anybody here in the audience or 

watching this that that entire report by the Bureau of Reclamation 

is available on the Bureau of Reclamation web site USBR dot gov. 

So I recommend any of you who want to, go on there and download 

that and print it for yourselves, if you’d like. 

This issue has been receiving increased attention recently in part 

due to shortage conditions on the Colorado River. But research has 

been ongoing for several years. New Mexico’s national laboratories 

and universities are engaged in cutting edge scientific research to 

help us better understand the potential effects of climate change on 

our water supplies and to learn how to better manage our existing 

resources. 

For example, researchers at New Mexico State University are 

studying the resilience of the acequia communities to climate 

change. Sandia National Laboratory has scientists collaborating on 

decision support tools to enable water managers to make informed 

decisions about water uses in the face of an uncertain future. 

I’m very glad that the Bureau of Reclamation has completed the 

report required by the SECURE Water Act. I’m looking forward to 

hearing about the status of the science on the effects that climate 

change may have on water supplies. 

I’m also interested in hearing about adaptation measures that 

can be taken to mitigate against negative effects. Even a quick look 

at the information being presented today indicates that temperatures are rising, precipitation is expected to decrease. 

The current conditions emphasize the need to support the efforts 

to develop a sustainable water supply for the country through the 

WaterSMART Program which the administration has in place. 

So again thanks to everyone for being here today. Let me briefly 

introduce our first panel of witnesses and then have them go ahead 

with their testimony. 
3 

Dr. David DuBois is the New Mexico State Climatologist. He is 

here today to give us his views. Esteven Lopez, of course, is Director of the Interstate Stream Commission. Esteven, thank you very 

much for being here. Corbin Newman is the Regional Forester for 

the U.S. Forest Service. 

If each of you could take a few minutes and tell us the main 

points that you want us to understand, I’ll appreciate that. Then 

I’ll have some questions of the whole panel. So, Dr. DuBois, why 

don’t you start. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID DUBOIS, NEW MEXICO STATE CLIMATOLOGIST, NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY. LAS 

CRUCES, NM 

Mr. DUBOIS. OK. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. We thank you 

again for the opportunity to testify about the status of the drought 

in New Mexico. As you said I am the State climatologist, I’ve been 

here about one year now, coming in from the State of Nevada. I’m 

originally a native of New Mexico. So it’s very dear to me on—this 

State. 

I also meet monthly with several State and Federal agencies including the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, Office of the 

State Engineer, National Weather Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Farm Services 

Agency to discuss drought. We’ve been meeting pretty much every 

month for many years now. I’ve been doing it ever since I got here. 

So I will give a briefing on the report of the precipitation and 

drought indicators that we as a group and myself have been tracking over the past year. 

I would like to direct your attention to the map. This U.S. 

Drought Monitor, that’s the latest monitor from April 19. Basically 

it’s a community effort that basically incorporates a lot of the local, 

State, Federal data on drought indicators, local conditions. It comes 

out every Thursday. That is actually last Thursday’s. A new one 

will come out tomorrow. 

That current one, the deep red is the extreme drought, what they 

call D3. Then the brownish mustard color, that is severe drought, 

D2. Basically it’s sort of an indicator of the extent and severity of 

the drought. 

The latest draft—I’m part of the monitor team. So tomorrow is 

actually—the draft of it is actually the—D3 is actually starting to 

encompass more of New Mexico. So it’s still draft. 

But if you can imagine drawing a line from where it is on the 

western corner about halfway up Catron County, including most of 

Bernalillo County, and then connecting with the easternmost portion of the red. So that’s our draft extreme drought according to the 

Drought Monitor for tomorrow. So it’s actually worsening compared 

to what was in the original statement. So that’s a very important 

thing. 

Currently the extreme drought covers about 33 percent of the 

State. I think it’s some more—it’s going toward more about—maybe 

nearly half of the State, somewhere around there. So that’s a very 

important—even though there’s been a little bit of precip in the Rio 

Arriba County area, I think there’s still—the big concern is Southern New Mexico. 
4 

There’s been many locations and reports that I’ve been tracking 

and working with the National Weather Service. You know, there 

are many sites that have not—haven’t seen any rain in over 3 

months. The same with—I manage a station in Las Cruces at the 

university that’s been operating since 1892. 

We haven’t seen anything since our snow on February 2. That 

was our only precip that we had. It was only eight-hundredths of 

an inch. 

So basically on a statewide basis, over the past 3 months, so January, February, March, the statewide precipitation has been the 

second lowest since records have been taken. So that’s a very important point. 

Then there’s another graph that I have in your packet that 

shows the average precipitation from January through March. This 

is on a statewide basis, showing every year the average precipitation. 

On the far right of the plot is the latest at 2011. Then I highlighted that, circled that. So that was—that basically describes the 

second lowest amount of precipitation, second to the 1972 very low 

precipitation. 

Just looking at this past March, statewide this has been the 

third driest on record. So this is on the whole State. There’s actually a few stations that are actually—that are actually the driest. 

But on the statewide, it’s the third driest. 

Again I just want to magnify that the hardest hit locations are 

in the southern deserts and along the central valleys. If you look 

at just the southwest deserts, the precipitation is about 7 percent 

of the long-term normal. So that’s pretty low. 

Not much better, the central valley is about 15 percent of normal. So like I said in Las Cruces we have not had precipitation for 

more than 80 days now. 

So in the past 12 months, we’ve noticed sort of a—what I would 

call a roller-coaster ride in precipitation. In 2009 to 2010, we were 

under the influence of an El Nino situation. We had above normal 

precipitation, lots of good snow. 

That sort of waned and we developed a La Nina which is the opposite effect of an El Nino. That started in the fall of last year. We 

are still under the influence of this La Nina, which means—which 

tends to be—which trends to translate into drier than normal conditions and warmer temperatures on average. 

So this past El Nino was the highest since we had an El Nino 

back in 1997, 1998, which you can sort of see that on the chart a 

little bit, if you can look at the highs. 

So there’s tremendous—on the graph there’s tremendous variation in the precipitation from year to year. What I like to do is 

track the El Ninos over time. The last chart on your handout is labeled a Multivariate El Nino Southern Oscillation, ENSO index. As 

you can see there’s ups and downs, back and forth. That’s over 

the—starting in 1950 to the present. On the far right is where we 

are right at this moment. We’re in the La Nina which is the blue, 

if you have a color handout. 

You can see this going from a very strong El Nino to a strong 

La Nina. That’s sort of—kind of the picture that we as climatolo-
5 

* Figures 1–3 have been retained in committee files. 

gists look at, is what kind of situation are we in. El Ninos tend to 

be wetter than normal, La Ninas tend to be drier than normal. 

It’s not all the same in the whole State. Usually the La Ninas 

tend to have more—in the past have had more influence on Southern New Mexico. There’s sort of a line—if you can draw a line on 

Interstate 40, below that, that’s the highest impacts of the La 

Nina, a drier than normal. That’s kind of what we saw this spring. 

So we’re expecting to see the La Nina starting to wane to more 

of an in between pattern for this coming next few months. Then 

right now we’re waiting for the monsoon prediction, which right 

now they’re looking at an equal chance of either high or lower. 

There’s really not a good sense. 

But the last statement of this is that during the past La Ninas 

that were very—that we had very little snow pack, the precipitation in the summer has been about 96 percent of normal. Those are 

for the conditions when we had a really low snow pack. I think that 

was like 2006. 

So if we look—if we learn from our past to see what kind of 

things we can potentially see, there’s—we can’t use it as a perfect 

predictor. But looking back in time, what happened during the past 

La Ninas, that will help us. 

So there’s—that’s kind of our discussion with our group, is, you 

know, what happened—is there a pattern that we were in in the 

past 30, 40 years, what happened then and can we—what can we 

learn from that. So right now we’re still waiting to see what the 

predictions are. 

But the best guess, educated guess would be maybe tending toward a more neutral, an average start of the summer. But, you 

know, we have to wait and see. So thank you for the opportunity 

to report on this. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. DuBois follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID DUBOIS, NEW MEXICO STATE CLIMATOLOGIST, NEW

MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY, LAS CRUCES, NM 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify today regarding the status of the drought in New Mexico. As the State Climatologist I direct the New Mexico Climate Center based out of the Plant and Environmental Sciences Department at New Mexico State University. I have been in this 

position for just over a year coming from the state of Nevada. Under my direction 

the Center maintains an archive of climate data collected throughout the state of 

New Mexico from many public and private networks. As the State Climatologist I 

meet monthly with the National Weather Service, Office of the State Engineer, NM 

Dept of Agriculture, NRCS, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Farm Services Agency 

to track the status of drought in the state. 

In this briefing I will report on the precipitation and drought indicators that have 

been tracked over the past year. The US Drought Monitor assesses drought conditions throughout the US incorporating state and local data on a weekly basis. According to the latest drought monitor map on April 19, 33 percent of the state of 

New Mexico is in ‘‘extreme’’ drought, 42 percent is in ‘‘severe’’ drought, 20 percent 

in ‘‘moderate’’ drought and 6 percent abnormally dry. Figure 1* shows a map where 

these designations appear across New Mexico. Southern New Mexico is seeing the 

brunt of the drought as the map shows. 

There are many locations, particularly in southern NM, that have not seen precipitation for more than three months. Over the past three months state-wide precipitation has been the second lowest since records have been taken. As the chart 

below shows the start of 2011 is only second to a dry period back in 1972. 
6 

Looking at just March 2011 state-wide precipitation is the 3rd driest on record. 

The hardest hit locations in the state are in the southern deserts and central valleys. In the southern desert region, over the past three months, precipitation is 

about 7 percent of the long term normal. Not much better, the central valley region 

is at 15 percent of normal. In Las Cruces we have not seen precipitation for more 

than 80 days. 

Over the past 12 months we have been on a roller coaster ride in precipitation. 

In the winter of 2009 to 2010 we were under the control of a strong El Nin ̃ o pattern 

and during the fall of 2010 a strong La Nin ̃ a developed. The 2010 El Nin ̃ o was the 

strongest episode since the one during 1997-1998. Below is a chart that shows the 

occurrences of El Nin ̃ os and La Nin ̃ as over the past 61 years. The numbers are a 

measure of the strength of the El Nin ̃ o/La Nin ̃ a signal. Our current status in the 

La Nin ̃ a is shown on the right hand side of the chart as the blue shaded area. 

Our understanding of the effects of La Nin ̃ a in New Mexico based on past events 

showed us that we would expect below normal winter and spring precipitation 

throughout the state and especially south of interstate 40. This is basically what 

we observed. While it’s not guaranteed that a La Nin ̃ a will bring drought it tells 

us that it’s more likely. 

The current observations are indicating a weakening La Nin ̃ a and the predictions 

are trending toward neutral ENSO by the start of the summer. It is difficult to give 

a prediction of the monsoon at this point in time. Based on the past we do know 

that La Nin ̃ a’s influence on summer precipitation has not been as negative compared to winter and spring. Summer precipitation in NM during all La Nin ̃ as has 

averaged 96 percent of normal. 

Thank you for the opportunity to report on this very important topic. I would be 

glad to answer any questions that you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony. Esteven, go right ahead, tell us your perspective from the 

views of the Interstate Stream Commission. 

STATEMENT OF ESTEVEN LOPEZ, DIRECTOR, NM INTERSTATE 

STREAM COMMISSION 

Mr. LOPEZ. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this 

opportunity to speak to you about the drought in New Mexico. 

As you’ve just heard, New Mexico has just suffered through one 

of the driest winters on record. For several areas in the State, the 

year-to-date precipitation is the lowest in the State’s recorded history. This as you might expect is already creating significant challenges for water managers. Those challenges are simply very likely 

to grow as the irrigation season advances. 

I just want to highlight a few examples of those challenges 

around the State. In the Gallinas River, the city of Las Vegas, New 

Mexico, relies on the surface water from the Gallinas River for 

about 90 percent of its supply. 

Given the severity of the drought, the city has already had to 

ban most outdoor uses. Additionally, they need additional infrastructure improvements. They have a funding request before the 

New Mexico Water Trust Board for a replacement well that is 

being considered right now. The current water supply emergency 

will play a part in the Water Trust Board’s deliberations. 

In recent years the Office of the State Engineer has worked with 

the Rio Gallinas Acequia Association to install flow measurement 

stations that will help in managing water uses there generally, but 

particularly in times of drought. 

More recently both the city and the acequias have been—successfully negotiated a water use rotation agreement that should help 

minimize conflict between the 2 as they struggle through the summer. 
7 

In the Lower Rio Grande, farmers within Elephant Butte Irrigation District have yet to receive any surface water this year. This 

means that all of the irrigation within EBID is being done through 

groundwater, the pumping of which as you can well imagine is 

more and more expensive as fuel prices rise. 

Further, given that usable water in Elephant Butte reservoir is 

less than 400,000 acre-feet, Article VII of the Rio Grande Compact 

is in effect. Thereby, prohibiting storage in upstream post-Compact 

reservoirs. This prohibition of storage will likely be in effect 

through the remainder of the calendar year and probably into next 

spring. 

This year flows in the Rio Grande past San Marcial and into Elephant Butte Reservoir are expected to be about 33 percent of the 

long-term average. In recent years the New Mexico Interstate 

Stream Commission working with the Bureau of Reclamation has 

worked to construct and maintain over 20 miles of pilot channel 

through the sediment delta to assure that the water that does 

reach the reservoir actually makes it into the active pool rather 

than simply spreading on the delta and evaporating. 

This has been helpful in terms of our Compact compliance. To 

date we are carrying forward a Compact credit that is in our deliveries to Texas of 164,000 acre-feet. That will help us manage 

through the future years as well. 

In the Middle Rio Grande, upstream reservoirs started the year 

with a substantial amount of water in them. However, the projected minimal runoff is still going to create quite a challenge as 

you noted earlier in terms of meeting the flow requirements for the 

silvery minnow under the flow requirements required under the 

2003 Biological Opinion while still meeting the needs of other middle valley users. 

The good news in that front is that the status of the endangered 

minnow is far better today than it has been in recent years. 

Thanks to the efforts of the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species 

Collaborative program, there is substantially more usable low flow 

habitat available. 

The needs of the minnow are much better understood. There is 

an experimental population in Big Bend, Texas. Now there are several off-stream refuges that are available to help them weather this 

drought. 

In the Lower Pecos River, water users and water managers are 

fortunate to have implemented the Pecos River Settlement in 2009 

and concurrently having built a 100,000 acre-feet Compact credit. 

That should help us get through into the next few years as well. 

But under the terms of the settlement, when surface supplies are 

limited, the settlement calls for augmentation pumping of groundwater for the benefit of the Carlsbad Irrigation District. This year 

the Interstate Stream Commission has already begun augmentation pumping as of March 1. We will likely have to continue pumping through the entire year. This is going to cost the State dearly 

in a time of very tight State budgets. 

On the San Juan, as you can see from the drought map, the San 

Juan is the one relatively wet area. It’s still in drought. But it’s relatively wet compared to the rest of the State. The Southern Colorado snow pack that feeds the San Juan is at about 100 percent 
8 

of average. Yet the runoff into Navajo Reservoir is expected to be 

about 80 percent of the long-term average. 

Nevertheless, given the fact that there is a multiyear supply 

sharing agreement in effect amongst the major water users in the 

basin and the fact that we’ve successfully installed measuring and 

metering equipment on all of the surface water diversions, hired 

some watermasters, we think that we’re well-positioned to manage 

through what we hope will continue to be just a fairly mild drought 

in this basin. 

The preceding are just a few examples of the drought challenges 

we’re facing all over the State. Every community around the State 

has drought-related challenges of its own. 

The State Engineer has recognized the need to actively manage 

and administer water rights and water uses. Ongoing legal challenges to the State Engineer’s proposed active water resource management regulations have hampered his ability to exercise direct 

priority administration. 

However, the advancement of measuring and metering all 

around the State, the hiring of watermasters, the admin—the alternative administration schemes that have been negotiated including 

some of the ones cited here, the rotation schedule on the Gallinas, 

the Pecos Settlement, the supply sharing on the San Juan, all demonstrate that we are slowly but surely getting our act together in 

terms of the State Engineer’s ability to manage and administer 

water uses around the State. So that’s going to be critical through 

drought periods. 

Finally, as you well know, a major element of effective administration is the adjudication of water rights. Progress is being made 

on that front. The negotiation, settlement, authorization, and partial funding of the Navajo Nation, Aamodt, and Taos Indian water 

rights settlements are certainly major elements of that progress. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank you, Senator, for your 

continued assistance in helping New Mexicans improve our ability 

to better manage our water supply. That support has come in the 

form of continuing funding to the Federal water management agencies, the support for the endangered species programs around the 

State, and most recently your heroic efforts in securing the Federal 

authorizing legislation and direct funding for the Indian water 

rights settlements. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lopez follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ESTEVEN LOPEZ, DIRECTOR, NM INTERSTATE STREAM

COMMISSION

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you about the drought situation in 

New Mexico. New Mexico has just suffered through one of the driest winters on 

record. Snowpack conditions around the state are generally very poor and consequently, flows in the state’s streams and rivers are expected to be extremely low. 

For several areas in the state, year-to-date precipitation is the lowest in the state’s 

recorded history. As you might expect, this is already creating significant challenges 

for water management in the state and these challenges will likely grow as the irrigation season advances. 

Since the start of 2011, the drought in New Mexico has been intensifying. According to the United Stated Department of Agriculture/National Agricultural Statistics 

Service’s ‘‘US Drought Monitor for New Mexico’’, drought conditions worsen as you 

move south through the state. Currently, only the northwestern corner of the state, 

roughly corresponding to San Juan County, has the least severe Drought Monitor 

characterization—that is, ‘‘abnormally dry.’’ The rest of the northern third of the 
9 

state is experiencing ‘‘moderate’’ drought conditions, the middle third of the state 

is in a ‘‘severe’’ drought condition and the southernmost third of the state is experiencing ‘‘extreme’’ drought conditions. 

Recognizing the intensifying drought, State Engineer John D’Antonio, Chairman 

of the New Mexico Drought Task Force convened a meeting of the Drought Task 

Force on March 21, 2011. This was the first Drought Task Force meeting under 

Governor Martinez’ administration. The meeting was intended to acquaint the new 

members of Governor Martinez’ team with the Task Force, its charge and of the 

need for coordination among state agencies. 

At the Drought Task Force meeting, the New Mexico State Forestry Division reported that year-to-date as of March 18th, there had already been 160 fires that had 

burned over 91,000 acres—more burned acreage than in all of 2010. Given the intensity of the drought, the potential fire outlook is severe. The representative of the 

New Mexico Agriculture Department reported that the state’s drought conditions 

are having ‘‘definitive negative impact’’ on the state’s agricultural activities. Moreover, the Department of Agriculture has characterized soil moisture conditions 

around the state as either ‘‘very short’’ or ‘‘short’’, much less than what is needed 

for normal plant development. At this time, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture is monitoring drought and considering requesting a disaster declaration of 

the Governor but has not done so yet. 

Some of the other challenges have begun to manifest themselves as direct water 

supply problems. A few examples include: 

Gallinas River 

The city of Las Vegas, New Mexico relies on surface water from the Gallinas River 

for about ninety percent (90%) of its supply. Given the severity of the drought, the 

city has had to implement stage IV drought restrictions banning most outdoor water 

uses. The city has begun exploring funding options to rehabilitate its surface water 

reservoir and replace some of its wells. The New Mexico Water Trust Board will be 

considering a funding request for a replacement well by the city and will take into 

account the current water supply emergency in its deliberations. 

In recent years, the Office of the State Engineer has worked with the Rio Gallinas 

Acequia Association to install flow measurement stations that will be critical to 

managing uses on the Gallinas River effectively. More recently, the city and the 

acequias have agreed to a water use rotation schedule that will help minimize conflict. 

Lower Rio Grande 

In the Lower Rio Grande, farmers within the Elephant Butte Irrigation District 

(EBID) have yet to receive any surface water this year. Although there is over 

450,000 acre-feet of water in Elephant Butte Reservoir, only about half of that 

amount is usable for downstream Rio Grande Project irrigation purposes. Under a 

2008 Operating Agreement between the US Bureau of Reclamation, EBID and the 

El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1 (EP1), most of the usable project 

water has been allocated to EP1 leaving EBID with less than 50,000 acre-feet. This 

means that all irrigation within EBID is being done with groundwater the pumping 

of which is more and more expensive as fuel prices rise. Further, given that usable 

project supply is less than the key threshold of 400,000 acre-feet, Article VII of the 

Rio Grande Compact is in effect—prohibiting storage of water in upstream, postcompact reservoirs. This upstream storage prohibition will likely to be in effect 

through the remainder of this calendar year and into at least next spring. This upstream storage prohibition is likely to have minimal upstream consequence given 

the lack of runoff available for impoundment. 

This year, Rio Grande flow past San Marcial and into Elephant Butte Reservoir 

is expected to be about thirty-three percent (33%) of the long term average. In spite 

of this low inflow, New Mexico has done what it can that to minimize natural losses 

in the system. In recent years, the Interstate Stream Commission has worked with 

the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to construct and maintain over twenty miles of pilot 

channel through the sediment delta at the upstream end of the reservoir to assure 

that the water that does reach the reservoir actually reaches the active reservoir 

pool instead of simply spreading on the delta and evaporating. This has been critical 

to New Mexico’s compliance with its Rio Grande Compact water deliver obligations 

and has helped build New Mexico’s 164,000+ acre-foot Compact Delivery credit. 

Also in recent years, the Office of the State Engineer has successfully implemented metering requirements on most non-domestic use wells in the Lower Rio 

Grande as part of his Active Water Resource Management initiative. Although the 

Active Water Resource Management regulations are being challenged in court thereby preventing priority administration at this time, this metering information should 
10 

be useful in better understanding water uses generally. It could also provide the information that would allow for voluntary shortage sharing agreements. 

Middle Rio Grande 

Upstream Rio Grande reservoirs in New Mexico started the year with plenty of 

supply. Still, the projected minimal runoff will challenge water managers in meeting 

the flow requirements for the Rio Grande silvery minnow under the 2003 biological 

opinion while also meeting the demands of middle valley users. This should not, 

however, diminish the fact that the status of the endangered minnow is far better 

than it was just a few years ago and in spite of the dire water supply outlook the 

minnow should be able to weather this year’s drought. This is the result of the collaborative efforts of the Middle Rio Grande Endangered Species Collaborative Program. There is substantially more useable habitat available at low flow conditions, 

the needs of the minnow are better understood, there is an experimental population 

in Big Bend, Texas and there are now several off-river refugia available. 

Lower Pecos River 

Water users and water managers in the Lower Pecos River in New Mexico are 

fortunate to have implemented the Pecos River Settlement in 2009 and built a 

100,000 acre-foot Pecos River Compact credit. The state is well positioned to meet 

its Compact delivery obligations. However, the settlement also calls for augmentation of the surface water supplies when water in storage for use by Carlsbad Irrigation District falls below certain threshold values. The Interstate Stream Commission 

is responsible for monitoring that available supply and has had to begin augmentation pumping since March 1, 2011. The current outlook is that pumping will probably have to continue through the irrigation season unless there are significant 

monsoons. This pumping is expected to cost the state dearly in a time of diminishing budgets. 

San Juan and Colorado Rivers 

In many regards, the San Juan is the one bright spot in the state. Or perhaps 

I should say it’s the one relatively wet spot. As indicated earlier, this area of the 

state is only classified as ‘‘abnormally dry’’. The southern Colorado snowpack that 

feeds this river is close to average, yet runoff into Navajo Reservoir is projected to 

be about eighty percent (80%) of average. Still, given that there is a multi-year Supply Sharing Agreement in effect along with successful implementation of metering 

and measuring of surface diversions and hiring of water masters the state is well 

positioned to manage through what will hopefully be a fairly mild drought in this 

basin. 

Elsewhere in the Colorado River basin snowpack in the Upper Basin is well above 

average (in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming) and inflow into Lake Powell is also expected to be well above average. This in turn means that there will be additional 

releases to Lake Mead under the terms of the 2007 Coordinated Reservoir Operations and Shortage Sharing Agreement. The net effect is that the immediate threat 

of a Lower Basin shortage has abated and reduced tensions for the time being. Nevertheless, unless we get into a substantially wetter cycle than the last few years, 

the tensions will increase again soon. The Colorado River basin states, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U. S. International Boundary and Waters Commission and 

Mexico need to use this current reprieve to make progress on longer term solutions 

for dealing with potential shortages before they hit. 

Conclusion 

The preceding examples are but a few of the illustrations of both how New Mexicans are suffering through the drought and of the challenges facing water managers. Every part of the state is facing its own drought-related issues. 

As noted previously, the State Engineer has recognized the need to actively manage and administer water rights and water uses. As the state’s population and 

water demands grow, and given the frequency and severity of drought in the state, 

this will become increasingly urgent. Also as noted above, the ongoing legal challenges to the State Engineer’s proposed Active Water Resource Management regulations has hampered the State Engineer’s ability to exercise priority administration. 

Nevertheless, the advancement in measuring and metering; the hiring of water masters; and the various alternative administration schemes, including those cited 

here—rotation schedules on the Gallinas, the Pecos Settlement, supply sharing on 

the San Juan—all demonstrate that the State Engineer’s ability to manage and administer water uses around the state continues to improve. 

Finally, a major element of effective administration is the adjudication of water 

rights. Progress is being made on that front, as well. And the negotiation, settle-
11 

ment, authorization and partial funding of the Navajo Nation, Aamodt and Taos Indian water rights settlements are major elements of that progress. 

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to thank Senator Bingaman 

for his continued assistance in helping to improve the state and its water users’ 

ability to manage water resources both in times of drought and in times of plenty. 

That assistance has come in the form of funding to the federal water management 

agencies, support for endangered species programs and, most recently, in the Senator’s heroic efforts to secure federal authorizing legislation and direct funding for 

the Indian water rights settlements. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Corbin Newman, you’re 

our final witness on this panel. We appreciate you being here as 

our Regional Forester. Go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF CORBIN L. NEWMAN, JR., REGIONAL FORESTER, SOUTHWESTERN REGION, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Mr. NEWMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for bringing 

us together on this really important topic, one that’s become all too 

common here in the Southwest and particularly in New Mexico. 

For me the most obvious and outward appearance of drought is 

forest fires, it’s grass fires, it’s woodland fires. I want to talk about 

those. But first I would like to highlight some of the connections 

that probably are more important in the long term that we look at. 

When we talk about drought, we think about it in sort of 3 

phases. The idea that you’ve got a panel here on climate change 

I think is critically important, because we think about drought 

today and how it affects our management that we need to carry on 

in our national forests particularly in fire. 

We think about the persistence of drought, how long has it been 

around. You know, decades-old changes in many, many things in 

what we do. Finally it’s about climate change and how do we address the management of your national forests around climate 

change to make them more resilient and able to deal with those 

impacts that they have. 

Here in the Southwest we all know it’s dry. All of our systems 

are fire adaptive. Fire has always been a component of the land 

around us. For us, though, it becomes more of, well, what has happened over the last century or half century. 

What we found is that the climate has really created more and 

more vegetation on the landscape that set us up for this current 

long drought that we’ve had to create these environments. Many of 

them we’re seeing, like Cerro Grande and the Red Sky fire, their 

impacts on systems where fire is not behaving as it did in the past. 

For us that’s one of the major emphases we have, is how do we 

restore some resilience to these landscapes? How do we bring them 

into an environment that’s different today than maybe when they 

began 100 or 200 years ago. 

For us that becomes a major emphasis of long-term management 

of the national forests. We’re making great progress here in the 

Southwest. 

As we think about the impacts of that drought today, as has been 

mentioned here, this year we’re faced with some significant challenges. All of New Mexico is in drought, every—a little over 9 million acres of national forest system lands are affected by drought. 

The further south you go, the worse it gets. 
12 

As we look at what our meteorologists are telling us, we expect 

that May will be dryer and warmer than normal. We expect an 

onset of the monsoons to come as they normally do. At least the 

odds are that will occur. But that means for the next 2 months, 3 

months we’re going to have some significant issues around drought 

and its effect on national forests. 

As many of you know, the Last Chance fire is now 40,000 acres 

burning outside of Carlsbad. It’s one of those evidences of the 

things that we’re finding are occurring now, sooner than what we 

have normally had. 

We have a Southwest coordinating group made up of the 5 Federal land management agencies as well as the State foresters of Arizona and New Mexico that really are coordinating the resources 

and preparedness for this fire season. So I would like to talk a little bit about those so folks know what’s being done. 

We saw early on that this onset was coming based upon what we 

saw in the first 3 months of this year and what the predictions 

were. So almost a month ahead of time we brought on significant 

firefighting resources into New Mexico to be prepared to deal with 

what we knew would be an active fire season. 

We brought in 2 helitankers, we brought in 3 air tankers. We put 

on 20 crews early in order to be able to deal with these. Now, unfortunately for the last few weeks, they’ve been mostly employed in 

Texas. But now they’re all back home and work on the fires that 

are occurring here in New Mexico. 

For me that’s one of the evidences of how well things are working 

in the Southwest amongst the folks who are taking care of wildland 

fire in the Southwest. The Southwest Coordinating Group is as 

strong as it’s ever been. The partnerships are evident in the way 

that we’re sharing resources and working in these interagency environments around fire. 

For me part of that is the result of many things you were involved in, Mr. Senator, a long time ago. The National Fire Plan is 

an example of how it brought together collective awareness about 

the need to collaborate and coordinate around fire, to leverage our 

resources to take advantage of all levels of government in our capabilities to fight fire. 

We fully expect that as we move forward in this season, that 

we’ll be faced with many challenges around fire. But we feel we’re 

well prepared for those with the steps that we’ve taken, to bring 

new resources into the area, to pre-stage them, to deal with fires 

such as the Last Chance. I think we’re going to find that we’re able 

to meet the challenges that are going to be in front of us. 

We also are moving forward to quickly and aggressively treat 

fuels. It’s one of those programs that ramped up in 2001, 2002. We 

have maintained a steady attack on hazardous fuels particularly 

around communities to do the best we can to protect communities 

from the effects of wildland fire. 

We expect we’ll have again a good year of accomplishing many 

of those objectives. We intend to continue to try to build capacity 

inside the State of New Mexico to deal with those kind of activities. 

One of the things again I would like to thank you for is the 

CFRP program. That has had a tremendous effect not only in treat-
13 

ing land, but to building institutional capacity and small businesses and communities to deal with this kind of effort. 

The panel today is meeting for this year’s awards. So for me it’s 

made a huge difference here in New Mexico and our ability to respond to these things quickly. 

There’s much more I could say. But it seems like it’s time I 

should stop. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to respond to more things 

that are relevant in questions. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Newman follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CORBIN L. NEWMAN, JR., REGIONAL FORESTER, 

SOUTHWESTERN REGION, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to provide 

an overview of the current drought situation in New Mexico and how it relates to 

the status of the U.S. Forest Service’s wildfire suppression capabilities in the Southwest Region. 

WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT

The Forest Service, in cooperation with partner agencies in the Department of the 

Interior, is perhaps the premier wildland firefighting organization in the world. We 

work together with our State, local, and tribal government partners to maintain our 

operational excellence and continually improve the safety and effectiveness of the 

fire management program. 

The Forest Service takes seriously its role in managing wildfire with firefighter 

and public safety being the first priority in any fire management activity. We are 

prepared for the 2011 wildland fire season and are staffed to provide effective fire 

management. 

We will continue our commitment to aggressive initial attack of wildland fire, 

where appropriate, with full attention to firefighter and public safety. Last year, our 

initial attack success rate was 98%. Further, our commitment to informed, performance based strategies will reduce firefighter exposure to unnecessary risk during fire 

incidents. Additionally, we will continue to provide assistance to fire adapted communities that have been or may be threatened by wildfire to enable these communities to reduce future wildland fire risks. In providing this assistance, we will continue to make hazardous fuels treatment in wildland urban interface areas a priority, assist localities in building their response capability, and work collaboratively 

with local communities to understand the role of fire and find ways to mitigate risk 

and to foster individual responsibility for property protection. These commitments 

are fully in line with the recently completed National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy signed off by the entire wildland fire community: federal, tribal, 

States and local officials. The wildland fire community, through the auspices of the 

Wildland Fire Leadership Council, has developed the Cohesive Strategy. This 

ground breaking blueprint provides a common underpinning for all entities with 

statutory responsibilities for wildfire. This is a national collaborative effort among 

wildland fire organizations, land managers, and policy making officials representing 

federal, state and local governments, tribal interests, and non-governmental organizations. In addition, the federal, non-federal and tribal wildland fire management 

partners will continue work this fiscal year on Phase II, Development of Regional 

Assessments and Strategies, and complete the implementation of the Cohesive 

Strategy next year in Phase III, a national risk trade-off analysis. 

FIRE RISK IN NEW MEXICO

Wildland fire and wildland firefighting are influenced by a complex set of environmental and social factors. In recent years, fires across all jurisdictions have become 

larger, impacting more acres, due in part to persistent drought and hazardous fuels 

accumulations. In addition, the expansion of development in the wildland urban 

interface has increased the complexity of fighting wildland fire. These trends are not 

expected to change. In fact, it is expected that effects of persistent drought in some 

areas will continue to increase the probability of longer fire seasons and bigger fire 

events and declining forest health conditions in New Mexico. Unusually dry areas 

with above normal potential for significant fire will most likely expand westward 
14 

* Figure has been retained in committee files. 

1 National Interagency Fire Center Predictive Services. http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/ 

outlooks/monthlylseasonaloutlook.pdf 2 ‘‘See Text’’ in figure refers to narrative description in the National Interagency Fire Center 

Predictive Services. Monthly seasonal outlook report. http://www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov/outlooks/monthlylseasonalloutlook.pdf 

across New Mexico through the spring and persist over much of the state from May 

through July (See Figure* Below).1 2

WILDLAND FIRE PREPAREDNESS

The 2011 wildland fire season has begun in many parts of the country. As of April 

21, 2011 a million acres have burned this calendar year. Most of this has been in 

Texas and Oklahoma with 124,450 acres burned in New Mexico. The total number 

of acres burned is above the ten-year average for this time of year. 

To prepare for the 2011 fire season the Forest Service, along with our partners 

in the Department of the Interior, the tribes, and the States have worked to improve 

the efficiency and effectiveness of our firefighting resources. Fire managers assign 

local, regional, and national firefighting personnel and equipment based on anticipated fire starts, actual fire occurrence, fire spread, and severity. All federal and 

state wildland fire agencies are represented in the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group. This group provides oversight to the National Interagency Coordination 

Center, located at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, and coordinates wildland firefighting needs throughout the nation. Resources are prioritized, 

allocated, and, if necessary, re-allocated. Prioritization ensures firefighting forces 

are positioned where they are needed most. Fire resources such as personnel, equipment, aircraft, vehicles, and supplies are dispatched and tracked through an integrated national system. In New Mexico, firefighting resources are often mobilized 

from the northern Rocky Mountains in the spring, when fire season in the northern 

States is still low. 

If conditions become extreme and U.S. firefighting resources are determined to be 

in short supply, assistance is available under standing international agreements for 

firefighting forces from Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. Under specified instances the Department of Defense, and specifically National Guard resources, may also be available to assist. 

Firefighting Forces 

Responses to wildland fires in the United States involve not only the resources 

of the Forest Service, but also permanent and seasonal employees from other federal 

agencies, States, tribal governments, local governments, contract crews, and emergency/temporary hires. For the 2011 fire season, the available firefighting forces— 

firefighters, equipment, and aircraft—are comparable to those available in 2010 

with more than 16,000 firefighters available from the Department of Agriculture 

and Department of the Interior. The levels of highly-trained firefighting crews, 

smokejumpers, Type 1 national interagency incident management teams (the most 

experienced and skilled teams) available for complex fires or incidents, and Type 2 

incident management teams available for geographical or national incidents, also 

are comparable to those available in 2010. Additionally, the Forest Service and the 

federal wildland fire fighting community work with State and local fire departments, which serve a critical role in our initial attack, and in many cases extended 

attack, success. We could not achieve the successes we have without them. 

For the Forest Service in the Southwestern Region of Arizona and New Mexico, 

there are 110 Forest Service wildland fire engines available for fire assignment 

along with an additional 40 engines from other agencies. This spring, the Southwest 

Area’s 22 Type 1 crews (interagency hotshot crews) will be available nationally into 

September-October. The Southwest Area will start the season with 30—35 Type II 

crews. 

Aviation 

Nationally, the wildland firefighting agencies continue to employ a mix of fixed 

and rotor wing aircraft. The number of these aircraft may fluctuate depending on 

contractual and other agreements. Key components of the Forest Service 2011 aviation resources include 19 contracted large air tankers, up to 26 Type 1 heavy helicopters, 41 Type 2 medium helicopters on national contracts, and 52 Type 3 light 

helicopters on local or regional contracts. The Forest Service also leases 13 Aerial 

Supervision fixed-wing aircraft, owns and operates 1 fixed-wing and 2 aerial supervision helicopters, owns 8 Smokejumper aircraft and contracts for an additional 4, 

owns 2 heat detecting infrared aircraft, and contracts 2 single engine air tanker air-
15 

craft (SEATs). Additionally, there are nearly 300 call-when-needed helicopters available for fire management support as conditions and activities dictate. The Forest 

Service maintains a contract for a 100-passenger transport jet to facilitate the rapid 

movement of firefighters during the peak of the fire season. The Forest Service also 

coordinates closely with the Department of Defense (DoD) in maintaining 8 Modular 

Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) that can be deployed in Air National 

Guard and Air Force Reserve C-130s. The MAFFS program provides surge capability for large fire air tanker support. 

Due to the fire risk in the Southwest, I have requested that ‘‘exclusive use’’ Type 

3 helicopters be located on the Gila National Forest (Silver City, New Mexico) and 

the Coronado National Forest (Sierra Vista, Arizona) earlier than usual. I have also 

requested that the national helitanker contract availability dates start three weeks 

earlier than normal with 2 heli-tankers stationed at tanker bases in Prescott, Arizona, and Silver City, New Mexico. 

Budget 

The Forest Service Wildland Fire Management Account suppression funds for FY 

2011 are similar to FY 2010. In addition, the Forest Service has enough carryover 

balances to allow us to respond to a worse than average fire season without transferring funds from non-fire accounts. The FLAME Wildfire Suppression Reserve 

Fund, established by the FLAME Act of 2009, is intended to minimize the need to 

transfer funds from non-fire accounts to the Wildland Fire Management Appropriation for fire suppression. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for securing the FLAME account which has enabled the fire community to stabilize its fire budgeting. 

IMPACTS OF A CHANGING AND EXPANDING FIRE ENVIRONMENT

The impacts of a high risk fire environment have adverse effects on natural resources and have socio-political ramifications as well. Wildfire has a natural and 

valuable role in many ecosystems helping to regulate forest and rangeland composition. Currently, many ecosystems across the country are out of ecological balance 

and are in need of restoration. This ecological imbalance results in ecosystems that 

are more threatened by wildfire due to factors such as increased fuel accumulation 

and infestation by invasive pests. These ecosystems contribute to higher fire risks 

and extreme fire behavior with severe fire effects such as significant impacts to municipal water supplies. By managing vegetation and restoring natural function and 

land resiliency, we can change fire behavior and the impacts of fire. Through a combination of mechanical treatment and managed fire, we can help improve the health 

of some fire adapted ecosystems and prevent heavy accumulations of highly flammable fuels. The Integrated Resource Restoration line item as proposed in the President’s FY 2012 budget, is a needed tool that will enable the agency to get more of 

this work done. In FY 2010, the Forest Service treated over 2 million acres in hazardous fuels, with the majority of acres in the wildland urban interface. By midApril 2011, we have already treated over 3⁄4 of a million acres. In Arizona and New 

Mexico, to date we have treated over 71,000 acres. 

Working closely with our partners, we are continuing to restore watersheds and 

reduce fuels to enable these forests to be more adaptive to stresses like drought. For 

example, prescribed fire treatments continue in the Santa Fe Watershed to reduce 

the probability of severe, high-intensity wildfire threatening the city’s municipal watershed and impacting the local community and livelihoods. 7,000 acres of the Watershed were analyzed, followed by thinning and prescribed burning on 5,260 acres. 

The city of Santa Fe hopes to fund analysis and treatment of an additional 1,000 

acres in pine stands in the upper reaches of the Watershed. 

In addition, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) 

has become a very valuable tool in our adaptive and restoration efforts. The 

210,000-acre Southwest Jemez Mountains project was one of 10 CFLRP projects selected nationally and received $392,000 in 2010. The project which involves Santa 

Fe National Forest and its CFLRP fund partner, Valles Caldera National Preserve 

(VCNP), focuses on thinning and prescribed burning to restore more natural fire regimes. These efforts will be conducted over many ecosystems, from grasslands and 

low elevation pin ̃ on-juniper woodlands to upper montane coniferous, sub-alpine and 

alpine forests and across multiple administrative boundaries. The project area chosen spans 12 small watersheds within the Jemez River Watershed and across 

boundaries of the Santa Fe National Forest, Valles Caldera National Preserve, and 

Jemez Pueblo. The cross-jurisdictional landscape presents an opportunity for collaboration among several agencies and stakeholders on the strategy of treatments. 

One community we are focusing on is Ruidoso as it is rated one of the ‘‘most at 

risk’’ communities in New Mexico. In 2006, the Lincoln National Forest and the 

Mescalero Apache Tribe signed the 16 Springs Stewardship Project under the au-
16 

thority of the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA, Public Law 108-248). This was 

the first Forest Service stewardship contract under the TFPA authority, which permits the Federal Government to enter into contracts and agreements with American 

Indian Tribes for work on public lands bordering or adjacent to tribal lands. 

The project strategically thins identified forest stands, providing specialized employment in harvesting, transporting, and processing commercial saw logs and 

small-diameter biomass. Currently, the commercial saw logs provide and maintain 

jobs at small local sawmills and a pallet mill in El Paso, Texas. The small-diameter 

biomass generated will support a new wood pellet mill, currently under construction 

north of Alamogordo, and provide critical material for facility development and testing. In the future, the biomass will provide the Mescalero Apache Tribe with material to operate a 6-megawatt power generation facility. The project has a cascading 

affect on maintaining and creating jobs within local tribal communities and area 

municipalities, enhancing the Mescalero Apache Tribe and Lincoln National Forest 

relationship. 

The fuel reduction work we do nationally not only reduces community fire risk, 

it is an important contributor to the economic health of many communities as many 

of the trees that are removed can go into milling infrastructure and create green 

jobs. We plan to match or exceed these accomplishments in the future. 

This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any questions that you 

may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Let me ask a few questions of each of you here. 

First let me just acknowledge Mayor Coss who came in. I expressed earlier the great appreciation for the use of your wonderful 

facilities here. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming by today. 

Let me also mention while we’re all paying attention here, Tanya 

Trujillo who works with me on the Energy Committee in the Senate does a great job in a lot of respects. But particularly she is the 

one that did most of the work in getting this hearing organized. We 

appreciate her excellent effort. 

She sent me a note here or gave me a note indicating that all 

the testimony, the full testimony of all of our witnesses today will 

be on the website of our Energy Committee. That’s energy dot Senate dot gov. So if any of you have an interest in reading through 

that testimony in full, it will be there. 

Let me ask the State Climatologist, Dr. DuBois: I think you were 

saying that predictions as to the so-called monsoons will be coming 

out soon? Do I take it that your office does predictions looking forward 90 days or some period of time and says this is what we can 

expect during the summer months or over the next several months 

or did I misunderstand that? 

Mr. DUBOIS. I don’t do the predictions myself. I utilize the 

NOAA, basically the products that come out on a nationwide basis. 

They start at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months lead in advance. 

They’re real broad predictions of the climate. You know, they will 

basically say it will be above normal or below normal or equal 

chance. 

Like, for instance, the monsoon for July, the 3 months of the 

summer. The predictions that I looked at yesterday said it was 

equal chance of either a wet or dry. So that’s where I get my information. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s based primarily on the fact that historically, when we have had one of these La Nina situations and significant drought that came with that, it has been followed by a normal monsoon period; is that what you’re saying? 
17 

Mr. DUBOIS. Yes. On many cases there have—that’s kind of what 

the past has shown us. The forecasts are based off of models and 

what’s been in the past, sort of the climates in the—yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Let me ask, Esteven, your view as to what 

is the state of the efforts in communities around New Mexico with 

regard to water planning? Is all of this information about expectations on precipitation in the future, is this all being utilized by 

communities in making decisions about water usage and ordinances and those kinds of things as you understand it? 

Mr. LOPEZ. Mr. Chairman, I think that by and large communities 

are making use of that information. Obviously some are better— 

are doing better than others. But I can point to several examples. 

If you look at the community of—the communities of Santa Fe 

and Albuquerque, they’re certainly diversifying their supply portfolios. They both now have surface water diversions and also diverse groundwater supplies. Albuquerque is looking at aquifer recharge and recovery. 

Las Cruces is also looking at diversifying its water supply portfolio. You’ve seen and I’ve talked about Las Vegas and the fact that 

they’ve got drought restrictions, that they’re already—they’re acting pro—in advance of the worst that we expect to see this year. 

Similarly Santa Fe has—Santa Fe and Albuquerque all act similarly. I think there are—planning efforts around the State are more 

and more utilizing these sorts of information in terms of communities making those decisions. But we can always improve. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Mr. Newman, let me ask you about—I think 

you referred to the Southwest Coordinating Groups. I’m just unclear. You talked about I think 20 different firefighting teams that 

were being brought in to deal with the expected problems that we 

have. A lot of those have been needed in Texas. 

How does that work? There’s not a lot of national forest in Texas 

the last time I checked. How does it work that your firefighting 

teams wind up in Texas fighting grass fires, for example? 

Mr. NEWMAN. Sure. When you talk about this coordinating 

group, this country has an immensely successful interagency structure for fighting wildland fire which includes grass, woodlands, forests. For instance, we have grasslands in Texas that we oversee 

here. It’s a partnership. 

So State foresters along with the Park Service, the BLM, Forest 

Service, BIA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we join our forces together to attack fire when it occurs in the wildland wherever it 

may be. So it’s sort of a mutual aid, if you will. 

So when it occurs, we have the ability to, if you will, mobilize 

and direct those resources across the country. In the Southwest we 

use the Southwest Coordinating Group to do that. 

Nationally we have an organization called NIFC in Boise that 

deals with the national interagency fire world. It helps move, if you 

will, resources around the country when needs are there, depending on where resources exist. 

Right now fire is occurring across the south. So from North Carolina over to Arizona, that’s where most of the firefighting resources 

are in the country today, as they take on the fires before they begin 

to move to the north. 
18 

So that’s why we’ll tend to move resources into Texas where fire 

is occurring and vice versa. If they didn’t have any fires occurring 

there currently in New Mexico and we needed them, those resources would move to New Mexico. 

The CHAIRMAN. Since we’re here in Santa Fe, could you just 

briefly describe what the Forest Service has done jointly with the 

city of Santa Fe to help reduce the risk of catastrophic fire here in 

the Santa Fe watershed. 

Mr. NEWMAN. You bet. You know, one of the things that as I 

mentioned before, few people see the outward effects of drought 

other than fire when they think about the Forest Service. 

The reality is most of the water that flows in the streams in the 

Southwest come off the national forest system lands, either in Colorado or here in New Mexico and Arizona. So the condition of those 

lands are critically important to that flow of water. 

What we found is particularly where municipalities have a dependence on a watershed for a lot of their surface water flow, those 

are the ones that are most at risk. I think to the city of Santa Fe’s 

credit, they saw that earlier on and realized something needed to 

be done that probably was not typical. 

Management was needed to lower, if you will, the risk of catastrophic fire that could have significant effects on both the quality 

and quantity of water they would get off of the Santa Fe watershed. So they entered a partnership. 

Creatively that’s being looked at across the country to begin to 

help water users realize that connection, to take money that water 

users pay and invest in those watersheds with the Forest Service. 

So we’ve treated I believe about 7,200 acres through thinning 

and prescribed fire. We’ve got about probably 300 acres left to finish the cleanup from the original thinning work and then continue 

to use fire to keep those fuels at a low level so fire, when it does 

occur in the watershed, will not be catastrophic. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, this thinning has the effect of heading off 

catastrophic fires in the area that’s thinned. Does it also have the 

effect of increasing the availability of water or the amount of water 

coming off of the watershed for use by the city of Santa Fe? 

Mr. NEWMAN. To a certain degree. Of course, it depends on how 

much water actually is input into the system, how much rain you 

get in a particular year. But I always liken it to trees are like 

straws. They’re in the ground and they pull water out and they 

transpire it. 

So the more we have density management, fewer trees on that 

landscape, the more water can really land on the ground and filtrate or run off. There’s less interception, less evaporation. So it 

creates that ability. 

But the real value there I believe when you look at the treatments is lowering the risk that that—that a significant fire could 

impact that watershed that would change it for decades, if not a 

century. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. I gather the same kind of thing has occurred 

in Southern New Mexico, particularly around the Ruidoso area? 

Mr. NEWMAN. Yes, Ruidoso being one of the most threatened 

communities in the country. We’ve focused a lot of energy working 

with various entities including Mescalero in how do we go about 
19 

collaboratively treating that area to reduce the chance of catastrophic wildfire. 

A significant issue because it’s very, very expensive. We’re trying 

to find economical ways, create industries that can utilize that material so we can treat an ever greater number of acres. But great 

progress has been made in treating around Ruidoso. 

Ruidoso Downs was the next on the list. We had the White fire 

down there that had a—will have a significant effect on Ruidoso 

Downs this summer. Monsoons there are not going to be welcome. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. This is very useful testimony. I appreciate 

it very much. I thank all three of you on this first panel. We will 

include the full testimony that you’ve prepared as part of our committee hearing record. Thank you very much. 

Why don’t we go ahead with the second panel. If they would 

come forward please. 

[Pause.] 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Why don’t we go ahead here. As I indicated 

before we started, at the beginning of the hearing, the second panel 

is to focus on the impacts of climate change on water supplies and 

particularly to highlight the report that was issued by the Bureau 

of Reclamation earlier this week in response to the SECURE Water 

Act. 

Let me introduce our panel members. Honorable Michael Connor 

who is the Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. Dr. Jonathan Overpeck who is codirector of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Thank you for being 

here. Dr. Brian Hurd who is associate professor of agricultural economics and agricultural business at New Mexico State in Las 

Cruces. 

I appreciate you all being here. Let me just—before I let Mike 

go ahead with his testimony. Mike was working with us in the 

same kind of—same position that Tanya now is working with us 

on our Energy and Natural Resources Committee when the legislation, the SECURE Water Act, was drafted up. 

He’s the person primarily responsible for getting that done and 

getting it passed. Now he’s the person primarily responsible for 

getting it implemented. So he deserves great credit for what 

progress has been made on this subject and for the report that he’s 

going to talk about today. So, Mike, go right ahead. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL CONNOR, COMMISSIONER, 

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION 

Mr. CONNOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I found out that’s much 

easier to think up great ideas than to implement them. 

The CHAIRMAN. I heard a great comment a year or 2 ago. Someone said that now—this was in connection with healthcare legislation. They said, you know, now they’re going to find out what 

Moses found out 2,000 years ago, it’s a lot easier to write it down 

than it is to get it done. So go ahead. 

Mr. CONNOR. For the record I’m Mike Connor, Commissioner of 

the Bureau of Reclamation. I thank you for the opportunity to discuss the water issues in New Mexico this year and the longer term 

subject of climate change and its affect on Western water supplies. 
20 

I would like to start by discussing the current water year in New 

Mexico. As noted the entire State is in drought. The Rio Grande 

has seen lower than average precipitation and higher than average 

temperatures. The Pecos River Basin has been even drier, with 

only 51 percent of average precipitation for this date. 

These factors coupled with below average carryover storage in 

both systems do not bode well for conditions in the spring and summer unless significant spring and summer precipitation occurs. 

Also while current conditions and projections are positive for the 

Upper Colorado River Basin, a warming trend during April has the 

potential to erode the above-average conditions we’re presently seeing. 

The dry hydrology in the Rio Grande and Pecos River Basins are 

of a significant concern to Reclamation with respect to its operations in New Mexico. In the Middle Rio Grande, we are working 

closely with the State, our contractors, and other interested parties 

to ensure there is sufficient water to meet endangered species’ 

needs and still maintain water operations in 2011. 

Notwithstanding these actions, it is expected that reservoir levels 

will fall over the course of the year. This situation lends urgency 

to our efforts to put a new long-term Biological Opinion in place 

upon expiration of the existing opinion at the end of 2012. 

In the Pecos Basin, Reclamation is working closely with its partners to acquire additional water that will provide sufficient flows 

for meeting the 2006 Biological Opinion, assist in meeting Pecos 

River Compact obligations, and provide efficient irrigation deliveries. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service and Reclamation are monitoring 

conditions and adjusting plans for reduced in-river flow conditions 

on the Pecos so that the available supply is optimized for the Pecos 

blunt-nosed shiner while still meeting downstream needs. 

To the west and north of here on the Colorado River, the upper 

basin of the Colorado has received healthy, above-average precipitation so far this year, 120 percent as of April 4. The April to July 

inflow forecast to Glen Canyon Dam/Lake Powell, which represents 

the bulk of the inflow, increased 4 percent last month to 120 percent of average. 

A favorable precipitation situation will allow for an equalization 

operation between Lakes Powell and Mead, bringing Lake Mead’s 

storage closer to that of Lake Powell’s. While encouraged by the 

water availability this year, we would caution that it’s too early to 

say that we are out of the long-term drought we’ve been facing 

since the year 2000 in this basin. 

A final note on this year’s water supply challenges. Our ability 

to successfully react to and address drought conditions requires significant planning, not simply a reactive approach. Our infrastructure has allowed Western water users to withstand significant 

boom and bust cycles of water supply over the last 100 years. 

Today the stresses on existing supplies are so significant that 

there needs to be new institutional and on-the-ground preventions 

to address future droughts. More flexibility needs to be built into 

our water system such as more diversified reserve supplies, efficient markets for short-term water transfers, and the creation of 
21 

new habitats to improve the resiliency of important ecosystems. I 

think Esteven’s testimony earlier touched on all those points. 

If we aren’t proactive, then most likely the only way to address 

drought is to try and mitigate economic losses. On this point I 

would like to segue to the issue of future challenges to New Mexico’s water supplies and that of the rest of the West. 

Climate change and the prospects for reduced water supplies 

over time are areas of special emphasis and study at the department. Last year, on March 16, this committee held a hearing on 

a departmental program called WaterSMART, which stands for 

Sustain and Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow. 

The WaterSMART program focuses the efforts of Reclamation 

and the U.S. Geological Survey on improving water conservation 

and helping resource managers make strategic decisions about 

water use. 

Much of my statement here today will review WaterSMART activities. But I would also like to discuss future activities and where 

the current research on climate change is pointing. 

As a threshold, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to return the favor and 

acknowledge and thank you for your leadership in this area. A 

number of the actions I’m going to discuss were authorized by the 

legislation you authored, specifically the SECURE Water Act. 

This legislation was enacted as part of the landmark Omnibus 

Public Lands Package that you managed, Secretary Salazar strongly advocated for, and President Obama signed into law in March 

2009. 

This legislation overall including the SECURE Water Act will 

benefit the entire Nation well into the 21st century. The science is 

clear that climate change will add to the challenges we face in 

managing our water supply, water quality, flood risks, aquatic ecosystems, and energy production. 

Certainty and sustainability are the goals Reclamation strives for 

in the use of the West’s limited water resources. Climate change 

strikes at the heart of those goals. We simply need to adapt. 

Earlier this week the department published the report called for 

under Section 9503 of the SECURE Water Act. The 9503 report 

synthesizes existing literature on climate change. It also features 

an original assessment of climate change implications for snow 

pack, hydrology, and overall water supply in 8 major river basins 

in the West. 

We’ve got some graphics up there to show those impacts and 

where they lie with respect to those river basins. 

The 9503 report affirms and adds more analysis to the scientific 

studies which include in the 21st century, temperatures may continue to increase by roughly 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit in the Western United States. This increase is in addition to the approximate 

2 degree average Fahrenheit increase that’s been experienced 

across much of the West during the 20th century. 

As discussed in the report, warming temperatures will significantly impact Western water management. The quantity of what’s 

available, water supply will change, some increases, some significant decreases. Timing of available supplies will change. 

April 1st snow pack decreases in all basins. Demand for water 

will likely increase with increasing temperatures. Environmental 
22 

issues will likely be exacerbated for aquatic ecosystems. Finally energy use and generation is likely to be affected. 

Speaking to the basins of primary concern to New Mexico, in the 

Colorado River Basin, the amount of increase varies geographically 

and seasonally but is roughly between 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit. 

This temperature increase is changing the dynamics of the basin 

and changing the growing season with spring coming earlier. Overall annual runoff is projected to decrease by an average of 8.5 percent by the year 2050. 

Although as a result of this year’s good precipitation in the Colorado River Basin and the prospects for lower basin shortages in 

2012 have been eliminated, the risks of shortage in the lower basin 

are expected to increase over time to about 40 percent in the year 

2026. 

Risks can be reduced through alternative water management 

strategies. Reclamation in cooperation with stakeholders basinwide is aggressively pursuing investigation of such studies in its 

WaterSMART basin studies which I’ll describe in more detail. 

In the Rio Grande Basin, first our report shows it will be perhaps 

the most heavily impacted river basin in the West. To be clear the 

report does discuss the uncertainties that still exist in projecting 

future precipitation patterns and runoff. 

Notwithstanding the use of the best available science, those models still have some inherent uncertainty. Nonetheless, the highly 

likely 5 to 6 degree Fahrenheit increase in average temperature 

during this century will have a strong impact on the basin. 

Mean annual runoff is projected to decrease by 7.3 percent to 

14.4 percent in the Rio Grande Basin by 2050, with late season 

flows most significantly decreased. These are the post-April 1st 

flows which are projected to decrease by 14 to 16 percent by 2050. 

As noted earlier water management systems across the West 

have been designed to operate within wide envelopes of hydrologic 

variability, handling variations from season to season and year to 

year. 

These systems were designed with local hydrologic variability in 

mind. As a result their physical and operating characteristics vary 

depending on storage capacity and conveyance flexibility. 

For example, the Colorado River Basin has a relatively large 

amount of storage relative to annual runoff compared to the California River Basin and the Columbia River Basin. 

Accordingly, the assessment of water management impacts and 

appropriate responses must be done on a local or regional level. 

This is the approach taken within Reclamation’s Basin Studies Program and West-Wide Climate Risk Assessments. 

In our fiscal year 2012 budget requests, Reclamation is seeking 

a total of $53.4 million for the WaterSMART Program, of which the 

Basin Studies and West-Wide Risk Assessments are a part. 

The request of $1 million for the Risk Assessments will continue 

Reclamation’s development of consistent baseline projections of 

risks to Reclamation’s operations due to climate change. We’re 

going to start a major part of the Risk Assessments here in the Rio 

Grande Basin. 

Funding of $2.5 million will support the Basin Studies through 

which Reclamation will continue to evaluate the ability to meet fu-
23 

ture demands within a river basin and to identify adaptation strategies where water supply and demands may not be in balance. 

The purpose of the Risk Assessment is to identify and examine 

water supply and demand imbalances so that Basin Studies can 

analyze how those imbalances impact operations. The Basin Studies may then develop strategies to mitigate or adapt to operations. 

The Colorado River Basin Study, which is a partnership of the 

7 Colorado River Basin States including New Mexico as well as 

other interested entities, is our largest scale basin study. 

In 2012 Reclamation will begin providing funding for specific feasibility studies for actions to adapt to and address climate change 

impacts through the WaterSMART Basin Study Program. We will 

also continue our support for conservation efficiency improvements 

through the WaterSMART grant program, the Title 16 water reuse 

programs, and our river restoration activities. 

As I identified in my written statement, adapting to improve 

water management and infrastructure upgrades, including improvements in our hydroelectric and environmental-related facilities, is a very active area for the Bureau of Reclamation. 

Before concluding I would like to mention the USGS Section 

9506 report that was released for public review earlier this month. 

As you know the SECURE Water Act called for a report assessing 

the adequacy of water resources measurement, modeling, and data 

sharing systems that are relevant to climate change adaptation. 

USGS has taken the lead in preparing the report in collaboration 

with many agencies at the Federal and State level. In sum the report discusses the need and opportunity to modernize data networks and climate-relevant data collection, data management, 

mapping, modeling, and information dissemination. 

Through this report and its water availability end-use assessment, USGS is ensuring that sound science is the foundation for 

present and future water resources management. 

Chairman Bingaman, once again I would like to thank you for 

your leadership this area. If I could just take a couple minutes, I 

would like to clarify something with respect to the SECURE Water 

Act. 

As I noted the SECURE Water Act was your bill. In April 2008 

the Santa Fe New Mexican published an editorial lauding the bill 

and the good science that it was going to promote. But within that 

editorial the New Mexican stated about the bill—and I’m going to 

quote this. ‘‘It’s got one of those too-cute acronyms as a name, the 

SECURE[Science and Engineering to Comprehensively Understand 

and Responsibly Enhance] Water Act. Westerners long in need of 

such legislation no doubt will forgive whoever thought up that 

mouthful as long as it doesn’t turn away prospective supporters.’’ 

So the good news is—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I think you’re the one who thought up that 

name. 

Mr. CONNOR. I was going to come clean on that point. I’ll confess 

I attribute the ideas and the programs within the bill to your great 

leadership. I’ll take the blame for the name because it was mine. 

But we’re pleased to be implementing that bill. I’ll take questions 

at the proper time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Connor follows:] 
24 

1Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Distribution and Change: 2000 to 2010. Summary 

online at http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/2010lcensus/cb11-cn124.html 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL CONNOR, COMMISSIONER, BUREAU OF

RECLAMATION

Chairman Bingaman, Ranking Member Murkowski and members of the Committee, I am Mike Connor, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) at the Department of the Interior (Department). Thank you for the opportunity 

to testify before the Committee today regarding the water supply situation in New 

Mexico and within the Colorado River Basin, as well as the longer-term subject of 

climate change and its effect on western water supplies. These are areas of special 

emphasis and study at the Department, and as a long-term New Mexican, I am 

pleased to report on the many activities we have underway. 

Last year on March 16, 2010, the Water and Power Subcommittee of this Committee held a hearing on a Department program called WaterSMART (Sustain and 

Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow). The WaterSMART program provides 

the foundation for the Department’s efforts to achieve a sustainable water supply 

for this country. It includes efforts of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey 

(USGS) to improve water conservation and help water-resource managers make 

sound decisions about water use. It is a prominent feature in the Department’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request. WaterSMART was established pursuant to Secretarial Order 3297, and the Program functions as the Department’s implementation 

of the SECURE Water Act, Title IX Subtitle F of Public Law 111-11. Much of my 

statement today will review WaterSMART activities to date, but I’d also like to discuss future activities and where the current research on climate change is pointing 

the Department and Reclamation. 

The science is quite clear that climate change will add to the challenges we face 

in managing our water supply, water quality, flood risks, wastewater, aquatic ecosystems, and energy production. These new stresses are likely to be felt first in the 

western United States, the fastest growing region of the nation. From 2000 to 2010, 

Nevada grew the most at 35.1 percent, followed by Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Texas. 

Nevada is the only state that has maintained a growth rate of 25.0 percent or greater for the last three decades,1 with some of the fastest growth in the driest areas. 

Earlier this week, the Department published the report called for under Section 

9503(c) of the SECURE Water Act (Report). The Report synthesizes existing peerreviewed literature on climate change, and also features an original assessment of 

climate change implications for snowpack and natural hydrology. The Report provides a presentation of Reclamation’s work to date on assessing the effects and risks 

from global climate change on water resources in each major Reclamation river 

basin; the impact of global climate change on operations in each of these basins; 

mitigation and adaptation strategies to address global climate change; and each coordination activity conducted by the Department within Federal and state water resource agencies. 

The Report re-emphasizes other scientific studies which conclude that in the 21st 

century temperatures may increase by roughly 3 to 4 degrees Celsius (°C) in the 

Western United States. This increase is in addition to the approximate 1-2 °C average warming experienced across much of the West during the 20th Century. Also, 

in the coming years, it is likely that the northwestern and north central portions 

of the United States will have greater rainfall (e.g., Columbia and Missouri basins), 

while the southwestern and south central portions are expected to have less precipitation (e.g., San Joaquin, Truckee, middle to lower Colorado, and Rio Grande basins). For the areas in between trends in precipitation have not yet been identified, 

though increasing temperatures may still affect water supply availability (e.g., 

Klamath and Sacramento River Basins). April 1st snowpacks are projected in the 

Report to decrease for almost all of the Western United States and annual water 

supplies may change, with the peak flow in snow-pack dominated watersheds occurring earlier. 

Speaking to the Colorado River Basin specifically, the Report shows that the entire basin experienced an increase in temperature in the 20th century. The amount 

of increase varies geographically and seasonally, but is roughly between 1 and 3 °C. 

This temperature increase is changing the dynamics of the basin, identified through 

measurement of the number of frost-free days, length of the frost-free season, and 

in the growing season length (spring is coming earlier). Results from climate simulations indicate a high degree of agreement on projected changes in temperature. 

Temperature is projected to increase by 1 to 2 °C by 2040, 2 to 2.75 °C by 2070 

and by up to 4 °C by the end of the 21st century. 
25 

2http://www.usbr.gov/lc/region/programs/strategies/documents.html 

Precipitation changes in the basin are more variable than temperature and the 

distribution of these changes are more complex. Precipitation variability is tied to 

ocean dynamics, in particular, sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific 

Oceans. This partially explains why Colorado River Basin precipitation varies 

through time. However, the period from 2000 to 2010, inclusive, has been the driest 

11-year period in the 100-year historical record on the Colorado River Basin. It is 

unknown whether this current drought can be attributed to climate change, as 

stream flow records reconstructed from tree-rings indicate that droughts of this 

magnitude have occurred in previous centuries. However, several scientific studies 

have concluded that the recent drought is likely a harbinger of future conditions. 

Modeled projections for precipitation indicate that there may be an increase in the 

Upper Colorado River Basin and a decrease over the more arid regions within the 

Lower Colorado River Basin. 

Despite the significant range of potential changes in precipitation patterns and 

quantities, the temperature driver is anticipated to continue to alter snowpack conditions within the Colorado River Basin. The trend towards earlier spring runoff is 

expected to continue, changing the time when snowpack melts and the dynamics of 

runoff. These changes are already apparent in that the snowpack in the Colorado 

River Basin has been experiencing a general decline in the spring, reduced fractions 

of winter precipitation occurring as snowfall, and earlier snowmelt runoff. Reduced 

mountain snowpack, earlier snowmelt, and reductions in spring and summer 

streamflow volumes originating from snowmelt could trigger increased reliance on 

ground water resources. However, warmer, wetter winters could increase the 

amount of water available for ground water recharge, but this is an area that is 

poorly understood and in need of further study. 

Many studies investigating changes in Colorado River streamflow have been conducted in recent years; in combination, they project reductions from 6 to 20 percent 

by the middle of the 21st century. The risks of shortage to users in the lower Colorado River Basin (as defined in Reclamation’s Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin 

Shortages and Coordinated Operations of Lakes Mead and Powell)2, although averted in 2012 due to a reasonably good snowpack and runoff this year, are expected 

to increase over time to about 40 percent in 2026. With current water management 

strategies throughout the Colorado River Basin, risks of full reservoir depletion are 

less than 5 percent through 2026, however these risks increase significantly between 2026 and 2057, inclusive. Risks can be reduced through alternative water 

management strategies, and Reclamation, in cooperation with stakeholders Basinwide, is aggressively pursuing investigation of such studies in its WaterSMART 

Basin Study, which I will describe in more detail below. 

It is not possible to infer water management impacts, nor develop adaptation 

strategies, simply from these runoff changes alone. Water management systems 

across the west have been designed to operate within wide envelopes of hydrologic 

variability, handling variations from season-to-season and year-to-year. These systems were designed with local hydrologic variability and demand patterns in mind, 

and as a result, their physical and operating characteristics vary depending on storage capacity and conveyance flexibility. For example, the Colorado River Basin has 

a relatively large amount of storage relative to annual runoff compared to California 

basins, and particularly relative to the Columbia basin. Each basin or Reclamation 

project also has different constraints in which it operates including providing hydropower, managing floods in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, delivering water to agricultural and municipal water users, and supporting the recovery of threatened and endangered species. The ability to use storage resources to 

mitigate future hydrologic variability, changing water demands, constraints on operations, and changes in runoff seasonality are key determinants of whether these 

natural runoff changes will translate into significant management impacts. Assessment of these water management impacts on a local level is the subject of ongoing 

activities within Reclamation’s Basin Studies Program and West-Wide Climate Risk 

Assessments (WWCRAs). 

In its Fiscal Year 2012 budget request submitted to Congress in February, Rec- lamation requested $58.9 million for the WaterSMART Program, of which the Basin 

Studies and WWCRAs are a part. Beyond the initial Report, the request of $1 million for the WWCRAs will continue Reclamation’s development of consistent and 

comprehensive baseline projections of risks and impacts to Reclamation operations 

due to impacts of climate change. Funding of $2.5 million will support the Basin 

Studies, through which Reclamation will continue to work with state and local partners to evaluate the ability to meet future water demands within a river basin and 

to identify adaptation strategies where water supply and demands may not be in 
26 

balance. Basin Studies benefit from results generated through the WWCRAs. The 

purpose of the WWCRA is to identify and examine water supply and demand imbalances so that the Basin Studies can analyze how those imbalances impact operations. The Basin Studies may then develop strategies to mitigate or adapt to impacts to operations. The Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request included $6.0 million for 

Basin Studies. As an example, the Colorado River Basin Study is focusing on a more 

detailed, basin-wide assessment of risk to Colorado River Basin resources from future water supply and water demand imbalances and identification and evaluation 

of strategies to resolve future imbalances and mitigate risks. As a separate activity 

from the work developed for the Report, Colorado River Basin stakeholders throughout the Basin are heavily engaged in the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and 

Demand Study. 

The Colorado River Basin Study contains four major phases: water supply assessment, water demand assessment, system reliability analysis, and development and 

evaluation of opportunities for balancing supply and demand. A scenario planning 

process has been undertaken to provide a framework to incorporate the high degree 

of uncertainty in the assessment of future water supply and water demand. This 

process, which includes input from stakeholders throughout the Colorado River 

Basin, is being used to develop a broad range of plausible scenarios of future supply 

and demand. Four water supply scenarios have been formulated and quantified, one 

of which incorporates future climate projections from Global Climate Models. The 

remaining three water supply scenarios use approaches applied to observed and 

paleoreconstructed streamflow records. Four water demand scenarios also have been 

identified that incorporate plausible future trajectories related to demographics and 

land use, technology and economics, and social and governance factors. 

All of this work is geared toward providing very real-world, practical results: preparing our facilities to continue delivering benefits in the future. Reclamation’s customers—farms, cities, power users, recreationalists and our ecosystem programs— 

all rely on the stability provided by the existing water infrastructure in the West. 

In 2012 Reclamation will begin providing funding for specific feasibility studies for 

actions to address climate change impacts through the WaterSMART Basin Study 

Program. Funding for the studies will require a 50 percent non-Federal cost share, 

and will pursue strategies previously identified in Basin Studies or equivalent appraisal level analyses. Potential areas include the Colorado, Columbia, Klamath, 

Missouri, Rio Grande, Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Truckee rivers, to be determined by Reclamation and its partners. In addition, a WaterSMART Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) was published by Reclamation and the Department 

of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) at the end of 2010 

inviting irrigation districts, water districts and other organizations to apply for conservation projects. In partnership with Reclamation, NRCS will provide funding and 

technical assistance to farmers and ranchers eligible for on-farm conservation practices through the WaterSMART program. 

In addition to these programs, Reclamation is completing major projects to recover 

power plant generating capacity and efficiency in the face of a more than 100-foot 

decline in the level of water in Lake Mead. These projects include installing new 

turbine components and modifying or adjusting existing turbine components to increase generation capacity available when the lake level is low. As a result, the total 

increase in generating capacity achieved at Hoover Dam to date is 93 megawatts 

(MW), and an additional 7 MW is scheduled for May 2011. Reclamation is also replacing existing turbine runners to wide range turbine runners to improve efficiency 

and provide wide range turbine operation at Glen Canyon and Hoover power plants. 

As you can see, Reclamation’s activities in the face of drought and potential climate change impacts are many and varied. In addition to the Programs described 

above, Reclamation also works with its many partners on a day-to-day basis to better understand and incorporate climate information into western water resource 

management as well as in the implementation of Section 9503 of the SECURE 

Water Act. These partnerships include: 

• Through the WaterSMART Program Task Force, each bureau and office under 

the Department is tasked to use available program discretionary authorities, 

within the scope of its mission. The Task Force is responsible for working within existing relationships and developing new partnerships between Federal 

agencies, States, and tribes to collaborate on implementation of WaterSMART. 

Through the WaterSMART Basin Studies, Reclamation is partnering with local 

water and power delivery entities to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies to meet any water supply and demand imbalances that may exist now and 

in the future. As noted above, within the Colorado River Basin Water Supply 

and Demand Study, Reclamation is partnering with the seven basin States 
27 

(New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, California, Nevada, and Wyoming). 

Similar partnerships exist for other basin studies. • Secretarial Order 3289 established the Department’s coordinated approach to 

dealing with climate change through the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives 

(LCCs) and Climate Science Centers. Reclamation’s collaboration within the 

LCC framework is part of its WaterSMART implementation. Each LCC functions in a specific geographic area and will form a national and international 

network for applied science to inform resource management. Over the past year, 

Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have formed broad-based 

scoping committees for the Desert and Southern Rockies LCCs, with participation by multiple State and Federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, 

tribes and universities. The steering committees for the Desert and Southern 

Rockies LCCs will be established in April 2011. Reclamation plans to integrate 

and coordinate its WaterSMART activities with the LCCs. Additionally, the Bureau of Reclamation has begun working with the DOI Climate Science Centers 

and National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center to identify develop 

and begin research specific to water management. • In 2008, Reclamation collaborated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the USGS to form 

the Climate Change and Water Working Group (CCAWWG) to bring water 

managers and climate scientists together to identify common information gaps 

to assess, forecast, and adapt to climate change impacts on Western water supplies. Additional CCAWWG Federal participants include the Environmental 

Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration; non-Federal participants include the Western States Water Council; local municipal water authorities; NOAA’s Regional 

Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) Centers; and the National Center for 

Atmospheric Research. • Department of Commerce—NOAA—Reclamation continues to collaborate with 

NOAA Regional Integrated Science Assessment (RISA) teams and regional climate centers in the western U.S. to assist in developing climate information to 

support stakeholders in a variety of sectors, including identifying information 

needs, development of decision support tools related to climate variability and 

change, and data selection, interpretation, and understanding. These centers include the Climate Decision Support Consortium, the California-Nevada Applications Group, the Western Water Assessment, the Climate Assessment for the 

Southwest, and the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program. Reclamation 

also continues to collaborate with the former RISA center at The University of 

Washington, the Climate Impacts Group. In addition to engaging with RISA 

centers, we are collaborating with NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory to 

better understand the science surrounding climate variability and climate 

change. 

• NRCS—NRCS’s Snowpack Telemetry network provides an extensive, automated 

system designed to collect snowpack and related climate data in Alaska and the 

western United States which is used to produce water supply forecasts. NRCS’s 

Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) is an information system designed to 

provide data on soil moisture and climate information from a number of different sources also used in forecasting. 

• The Department of Interior participates on the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, co-chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality, the 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Office of Science 

and Technology Policy.μ The Task Force works with Federal agencies to identify 

actions to better prepare the United States to respond to the impacts of climate 

change. The October 2010 Progress Report of the Task Force recommends that 

the Federal Government implement actions to expand and strengthen the Nation’s capacity to better understand, prepare for, and respond to climate change. 

The Task Force’s work has been guided by a strategic vision of a resilient, 

healthy, and prosperous Nation in the face of a changing climate. Reclamation 

participates on the Water Resources and Climate Change Adaptation 

Workgroup that supports the Task Force and is developing the National Action 

Plan for adaptation of freshwater resources management to climate change 

called for in the October 2010 Progress Report of the Adaptation Task Force 

(see the October 2010 Progress Report of the Task Force for more information). 

• Finally, I’d like to note that the Administration recently transmitted a report 

to Congress that was required in Section 9506 of the SECURE Water Act. Section 9506 of the Omnibus Public Lands Act (Public Law 111–11) calls for a report to Congress on the adequacy of water resources measurement, modeling, 

and data sharing systems that are relevant to climate change adaptation. The 
28 

Nation invests considerable resources in monitoring, mapping, evaluating, assessing, modeling, and managing water resources. Many of the existing observational water data networks, models, and hydro-statistical methods were developed for specific users and pre-date recent advances in climate change science. 

As a result, these systems (networks, methods, and models) were not designed 

to account for the effects of a changing climate on water resources, or to evaluate the effectiveness of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. 

Today, there is a need and an opportunity to modernize data networks and climate-relevant data collection, data management, mapping, modeling, and information dissemination. Of particular importance is maintenance and strengthening of long-term ground-based and remote observational capabilities to detect 

change. The report addressing these concerns has been reviewed by the multiagency panel authorized in Section 9506(a), and a draft version is out for public 

comment. The panel looks forward to presenting its findings to the Secretary 

for transmission to Congress. 

HYDROLOGY—COLORADO RIVER AND NEW MEXICO WATER SUPPLY, 2011

Apart from the longer-term topic of west wide climate change, the other focus of 

the Committee today is the near-term water supply picture on the Colorado River 

and here in New Mexico for 2011. We’ve discussed long-term trends on the Colorado 

above, so let me turn now to the Rio Grande. 

In New Mexico, predictions of a strong La Nin ̃ a, with drier conditions expected 

in the Rio Grande and Pecos river basins, are proving accurate this year based on 

the early season conditions in these basins. The Rio Grande is seeing lower than 

average precipitation (80 percent as of April 17), and higher than average temperatures. The Pecos River Basin has been even drier, with only 51 percent of average 

water year precipitation for this date (April 17). These factors, coupled with below 

average carryover storage in the systems, do not bode well for conditions in the 

spring and summer in these two basins unless significant late spring precipitation 

occurs. While current conditions and projections are positive for the Upper Colorado 

River basin, a warming trend during April has the potential to erode the above average conditions that we are currently seeing. 

The low precipitation levels that currently exist in the Rio Grande and Pecos river 

basins are of significant concern to Reclamation with respect to its operations in 

New Mexico. In the Middle Rio Grande, although there is likely to be sufficient 

water to meet endangered species needs and still maintain water operations in 

2011, reservoir levels will fall and the situation lends urgency to our efforts to put 

a new long-term biological opinion in place upon expiration of the existing opinion 

at the end of 2012. 

In the Pecos river basin, Reclamation is working closely with its water user partners and the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission to acquire additional water 

through lease and forbearance agreements that will provide sufficient flows for 

meeting the 2006 biological opinion flow targets, assist in meeting Pecos River Compact obligations, and provide efficient irrigation deliveries. The U.S. Fish Wildlife 

Service and Reclamation are monitoring conditions and adjusting operational plans 

for anticipated reduced in-river flow conditions on the Pecos so that the available 

supply is optimized to protect the Pecos Bluntnose Shiner while meeting downstream needs. 

Finally, with respect to the Rio Grande Project, forecasted inflow to Elephant 

Butte Reservoir is 36 percent of average and the reservoir is expected to drop 24 

feet this summer impacting the recreational economy of the area. Water users, the 

states of New Mexico and Texas, and Reclamation are looking at alternatives to conserve storage while meeting irrigation demands for two irrigation districts and treaty obligations for water deliveries to lands in the Republic of Mexico. As part of its 

primary mission in the Middle Rio Grande, Reclamation continues to improve the 

Rio Grande channel conditions for the efficient transport of water and sediment to 

Elephant Butte in collaboration with the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, and is working closely with irrigation districts to increase their conservation 

efforts. 

To the west and north of New Mexico on the Colorado River, the upper basin of 

the Colorado has received healthy, above average precipitation so far this year (121 

percent of average as of 4/21). The April to July inflow forecast to Glen Canyon Dam 

/ Lake Powell, which represents the bulk of the inflow, increased by 6 percent since 

March 1 to 122 percent of average. The above average inflow forecast will result in 

increased releases from Lake Powell under the equalization rules. These additional 

releases from Lake Powell will increase Lake Mead’s content to approximately 46 

percent of capacity by the end of the water year, more closely balancing the contents 
29 

between Lake Powell and Lake Mead. While we are encouraged by the water availability this year, we would caution that it is too early to say that we are out of the 

long-term drought we have been facing since 2000 in the southwest. 

As of April 21, 2011, the storage in Lake Mead was 11.1 million acre-feet (43 percent of capacity) and its surface water elevation was 1,096 feet above sea level. Total 

overall reservoir storage in the Colorado River Basin was 31.4 million acre-feet (53 

percent of capacity). 

Due to winter storms in the Lower Basin in late 2010, tributary inflows were well 

above average in December. Inflows resulting from these storms increased Lake 

Mead’s elevation by nearly 2 feet during a 7-day period in December 2010. Also due 

to the winter storms in late December 2010, and additional storms in February 

2011, demands in the Lower Basin were less than projected during the months of 

January and February 2011. The month of February brought cooler than normal 

temperatures and precipitation varied with below normal precipitation in some 

areas and above normal precipitation in other parts of the Lower Basin. During 

March, temperatures were warmer than normal and precipitation was well below 

normal throughout the basin. The Climate Prediction Center outlook (dated April 

21, 2011) indicates that over the next three months that more likely than not it will 

be warmer than normal with equal chances for above or below normal precipitation 

in the Lower Basin. 

WATERSMART WATER AVAILABILITY AND USE ASSESSMENT INITIATIVE

The Department of the Interior’s High Priority Performance Goal set a target for 

water conservation through the WaterSMART Program. For Fiscal Year 2012, Reclamation is seeking to achieve 490,000 acre-feet of water savings. In Fiscal Year 

2010, Reclamation achieved a savings of 150,000 acre-feet of water. The Fiscal Year 

2011 assessment is still underway. 

As previously mentioned, the USGS is an important partner of Reclamation on 

the WaterSMART initiative. I would like to end this statement with a discussion 

of the USGS’s WaterSMART Water Availability and use Assessment Initiative. 

Many factors affect the amount of water that is available; precipitation patterns, 

streamflows, groundwater availability, and land uses all affect water availability. 

The USGS’s WaterSMART Water Availability and Use Assessment Initiative will 

account for the changing amount, quality, and use of water resources across the Nation. It provides a standard way for the Nation to understand water availability 

using measurements or estimates of the different components of the water cycle, including precipitation, surface water, and groundwater. The President’s 2012 budget 

includes $10.9 million USGS to carry out this initiative. The key components of this 

initiative include: 

• A nationwide system to deliver information about water availability factors that 

every manager needs when dealing with availability questions—precipitation 

and evapotranspiration, surface-water runoff and baseflows, recharge to groundwater and changing storage in aquifers. 

• Increased knowledge of water use science—withdrawals, demands, consumption, and return flows. 

• An investment in the science of ecological flows. 

• A new grant program for state water resource agencies to assist them with critical work on their water use databases. 

• A series of ‘‘focus area’’ studies that will include a comprehensive three-year 

technical assessment of water availability with the best available tools. 

The ultimate objective of USGS WaterSMART efforts is to provide the ability to 

track water use from its point of withdrawal, through how the water is used and 

consumed, and ultimately how it is returned to the environment. The Administration fully recognizes the important role of states in producing water use information, 

and we realize the heavy burden that states currently bear financially. For that reason, USGS investment in water use science will include a program of grants to state 

water resource agencies to assist them with critical work on their water use databases. 

Finally, throughout the United States there are areas where competition for water 

resources has reached a level of national attention and concern. Sometimes the competing interests are multiple human needs—needs for potable water, for irrigation, 

for energy, for industrial processes or for other uses. In other circumstances, the 

competition is between human and aquatic ecosystems needs. Through 

WaterSMART, USGS proposes a series of studies, focused on selected watersheds, 

where there is a desire on the part of watershed stakeholders to conduct a comprehensive technical assessment of water availability with the best available tools. 
30 

These studies will provide critical information to land and water resource managers 

through a comprehensive technical analysis of the factors affecting the availability 

of water. The first three geographically focused studies of water availability and use 

will be in the Colorado River (CO, UT, WY, NV, NM, AZ, CA), Delaware River (NY, 

PA, NJ, DE), and Apalachicola, Chattahoochee, and Flint River Basins (AL, FL, 

GA). USGS will work with watershed stakeholders and the various agencies involved in these geographic focus areas to scope and conduct these studies. During 

the early months of 2011, USGS began seeking stakeholder input to develop the 

scope of the Colorado River geographic focus area study. 

The 2012 budget provides $10.9 million for USGS activities in the WaterSmart 

initiative, $9.0 million above the 2010 Enacted/2011 CR level, to implement the 

WaterSmart Availability and Use Assessment. USGS will conduct comprehensive 

water supply and demand inventories to provide the baseline information needed by 

public and private water managers to work toward sustainable water supplies. This 

effort will include estimating freshwater resources, how those supplies are distributed, and how they are changing over time; evaluating factors affecting water availability including energy development, changes in agricultural practices, increasing 

population, and competing priorities for limited water resources; and assessing 

water use and distribution for human, environmental, and wildlife needs. 

CONCLUSION

Droughts and dry weather are nothing new in the Southwest. And as you know, 

the water infrastructure constructed by Reclamation and our partners in the West 

was built to mitigate for that reality. This year, we will work with the hydrology 

in New Mexico and on the Rio Grande and Colorado River together with our partners to maximize water reliability on the rivers, and meet our obligations to the 

maximum extent practicable. 

In the longer term, the Department is working every day to equip our agencies 

and other resource managers with the data they need to answer the questions they 

face about water supply and use and to continue delivering water and power in the 

face of a changed climate. 

While the activities described here today are wide-ranging, they are by no means 

inclusive of every avenue we’re pursuing. New ideas are at the heart of innovation, 

and we value our partnership with Congress to bring the best thinking to the challenge of climate change. In ways both large and subtle, this challenge will impact 

nearly every facet of Reclamation’s operations, so if new thinking on how to anticipate and adapt to climate change comes to our attention, we will pursue those as 

well. 

Chairman Bingaman, thank you for the opportunity to discuss these important 

topics. I would be pleased to answer any questions the Committee may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you again. Thank you for your testimony 

here today. Dr. Overpeck, go right ahead. 

STATEMENT OF JONATHAN OVERPECK, CO-DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF THE ENVIRONMENT, PROFESSOR OF GEOSCIENCES, PROFESSOR OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, THE 

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 

Mr. OVERPECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to 

speak with you today on the topic of climate variability and climate 

change as they relate to water supply in New Mexico and the 

broader Southwest United States. 

My name for the record is Jonathan Overpeck. It’s a pleasure to 

be testifying in a hearing in my parents’ hometown of Santa Fe. 

In addition to being codirector of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona, I’m also professor of geosciences 

and professor of atmospheric sciences. I have published over 140 

papers on climate environmental sciences and have played a prominent scientific role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate 

Change as well as various U.S. and national science programs. 

I’ve been awarded numerous U.S. Government and professional 

awards for my climate-related work. Most important at this hear-
31 

ing perhaps, I serve as the principal investigator for the Climate 

Assessment of the Southwest Program which is an interdisciplinary 

science program focused on climate variability and change with the 

goal of helping promote improved decisionmaking. 

In my written testimony, I discuss the current drought in some 

detail, the drought that’s affecting New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, 

Oklahoma, and the adjoining region. But Dr. DuBois and others 

testifying before me have done a good job on this topic already. 

So for this reason I will start by trying to put the current 

drought in a much longer 2,000 year paleoclimatic perspective that 

makes it clear that the current drought, although serious, is modest compared to the magnitude of drought that has happened in 

the past and thus could happen in the future, even in the absence 

of climate change. 

I will start with a focus on the Colorado River and then shift to 

new scientific results that have serious implications for both the 

Rio Grande and the Colorado Rivers. 

The state-of-the-art published tree-ring based stream flow reconstruction for the Colorado River at Lee’s Ferry just below Lake 

Powell indicates that several megadroughts, those are droughts 

that last decades, have occurred in the Southwest, with the worst 

in the 12th century A.D. lasting over 30 years. 

Most of these natural droughts were apparently driven by low 

precipitation during the winter and spring, much like the drought 

currently affecting New Mexico. Most were also apparently associated at least in part with cool, La Nina-like conditions in the Equatorial Pacific, again quite similar to the current drought in New 

Mexico. It’s important to remember La Nina through this testimony. 

The difference between the current drought and the earlier 

droughts is that the earlier ones were much longer and more severe; that is, a good deal drier than the current drought. 

Because a megadrought like that of medieval times lasting not 

years but decades could occur on top of the reduced Colorado and 

Rio Grande flows projected in the just released Bureau of Reclamation report, the issue of future drought is a serious concern. 

Droughts on top of climate change will likely be a double-whammy, 

much worse than drought alone and much worse than just climate 

change alone. 

However, as serious as the just discussed megadrought sounds, 

one lasting 30 years, new scientific research not yet published provides evidence that the megadroughts currently believed by scientists and water managers alike to be the worst case possible may 

not be as bad as it could get. 

There is now evidence that even longer and more severe 

megadroughts apparently occurred in the headwaters of both the 

Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers. More detail are in my written testimony. 

But we now have reason to believe that a drought as long as 49 

years interrupted by only one wet year happened in recent history; 

and thus, this could happen in the future. 

Moreover, we now have reason to believe that the worst-case medieval megadrought mentioned in the new Bureau of Reclamation 

report; that is, 85 percent of normal Colorado flow for 25 years— 
32 

University of Arizona work by the way—may have in reality been 

substantially more severe; that is, substantially drier than we believed before. 

Further research is needed to confirm these new results and integrate them into water planning efforts being carried out by the 

Bureau of Reclamation and others in the Southwest. 

Turning to climate change, I would like to start by commending 

the fine work that is contained in the just released Bureau of Reclamation report. I believe that the scientific evidence strongly supports the Bureau of Reclamation finding that the Southwest and 

particularly the Colorado/Rio Grande River Basins will become substantially hotter and drier if we choose to let human-caused climate 

change continue into the future. 

What gives climate scientists confidence in these projections is 

that the change is already happening. It is happening as the climate models suggest it should. The Southwest is already warming 

rapidly. 

The spring snow pack and the Colorado stream flow are already 

declining. A large majority of climate models agree that we are 

likely to see less late winter precipitation just as occurring—as it’s 

occurring in the real world. 

All of the published peer-reviewed stream flow projections for the 

Colorado, and that’s the river that’s received the most scientific attention, indicate that future stream flow will be on average less in 

volume, with a chief uncertainty being how fast the stream flow 

will decline into the future. 

Most recent work suggests a 10 to 20 percent decline by mid-century with a finite chance that all reservoir storage on the Colorado 

could go dry absent effective shortage management, which we know 

will happen. There will be effective management. 

My foregoing discussion of possible future megadrought will only 

make this possibility more likely. The dry will not magically stop 

at mid-century if we choose to let human-caused climate change 

continue. 

Now, I would like to highlight some factors that should be the 

focus of greater research because they could have a big impact on 

our future water supply in the Southwest. 

First the future behavior of the El Nino Southern Oscillation or 

ENSO system as we like to call it is highly uncertain. If it turns 

out that more frequent or severe La Ninas are likely; that is, La 

Ninas like this year happening more frequently and in a more severe manner, it could increase future drought risk substantially. 

Research is needed to unravel the mystery of El Nino and La Nina 

under changing climate. 

Second, new research indicates that state-of-the-art climate models appear to underestimate the true risk of future megadrought. 

Correcting for this bias suggests that the odds of a megadrought 

lasting 25 or more years in this century are as high as 1 in 2 for 

parts of the Southwest. This new result is shocking and needs to 

be fully researched. 

Third, it is unclear whether future changes in the summer monsoon will help offset water losses that could occur in the winter and 

spring or whether summer drought could make the future situation 

more challenging. Work is underway to answer these questions. 
33 

But definitive results will emerge slowly unless more dedicated 

funding for monsoon research becomes available. 

Fourth, the growing incidence of climate-related tree die-off could 

further limit water supply. Over 7 percent of Southwestern forests 

and woodland area has recently seen die-off of trees due to drought 

and insects. An additional 3 percent of the forests and woodland 

area has been affected by wildfire. 

Recent research, again not yet published but almost published, 

needs to be tested. But it suggests that it would be prudent for 

water management to assume that the widespread and growing 

tree die-off in the Southwest could act to further reduce, not increase, flow in some of our rivers. 

Fifth, poor land use and desertification in the Southwest could 

further reduce stream flow in snow-dominated systems like the 

Colorado/Rio Grande by allowing greater amounts of dust to blow 

out of our lower elevations and into our headwaters, where the 

dust is known to speed the melting of snow and reduce the flow 

in our rivers. 

Research on how sensitive our biggest watersheds, for example, 

the Colorado and Rio Grande, are to desert dust is needed; just as 

we need to learn how to reduce the amount of dust that is blowing 

up into our headwaters. 

To conclude Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest that it is both 

safe and wise for people and decisionmakers in the Southwest to 

assume that the future will be hotter, drier, and more drought 

prone. 

Scientists and decisionmakers need to work together to study the 

details of what lies ahead and to develop strategies to make effective decisions under the uncertainties that will always exist while 

at the same time reducing these uncertainties. 

Scientists and water managers alike should be careful to avoid 

the belief that the currently estimated worst-case scenario is really 

the worst that it could get. 

But finally, it is critical to realize that we can certainly make the 

worst case for the Southwest less worse by eliminating the human 

causes of the climate change that is already affecting the Southwest. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and colleagues, for giving me the opportunity to discuss climate and water issues with you. I’d be 

happy to answer any questions that you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Overpeck follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JONATHAN OVERPECK, CO-DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF THE

ENVIRONMENT, PROFESSOR OF GEOSCIENCES, PROFESSOR OF ATMOSPHERIC

SCIENCES, THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

Chairman Bingaman and other members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on climate variability and climate change as they 

relate to water supply in New Mexico and the broader Southwest United States. 

My name is Jonathan Overpeck. I am the founding co-director of the Institute of 

the Environment at The University of Arizona, where I am also a professor of geosciences and a professor of atmospheric sciences. I have published more than 140 

papers on climate and the environmental sciences, and recently served as a coordinating lead author for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 

Fourth Assessment (2007). I have been awarded the US Department of Commerce 

Bronze and Gold medals, the Walter Orr Roberts award of the American Meteorological Society and a Guggenheim Fellowship for my interdisciplinary research. I 

also serve as principal investigator of the Climate Assessment for the Southwest 
34 

* Figures 1–7 have been retained in committee files. 

(CLIMAS), an interdisciplinary Regional Integrated Science and Assessment (RISA) 

project funded by NOAA. In this capacity, and others, I work not only on generating 

climate system knowledge, but also on supporting use of this knowledge by decisionmakers in society. I am a well-known expert on climate variability and change, as 

well as drought. 

OVERVIEW OF TESTIMONY

In this testimony I first discuss the current severe drought that is affecting New 

Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma and adjoining regions. I then put this current 

drought in a 2000-year perspective that makes it clear that the current drought, although serious, is modest compared to the magnitude of drought that could happen 

in the future even in the absence of climate change. I then focus on the dominantly 

human-caused climate change that has already started in the Southwest, and how 

continued climate change could make the risk and impacts of drought and decadeslong megadrought much greater for the region that includes New Mexico. In my discussions of past natural drought and likely future human-caused climate change, I 

cover the well-established science, as well as provide updates on important new 

science that is just emerging. The bottom-line is that New Mexico and the rest of 

the broad Southwest—extending from California through east Texas and Oklahoma—are at an increasing risk of unprecedented warming, drying and drought, 

and should prepare accordingly to ensure secure water supplies through this century. 

THE CURRENT DROUGHT

The current drought is part of a broader western—and southwestern—drought 

that has persisted on and off across the region since the late 1990’s. As such, the 

current drought is an extension of the worst drought the region has seen in the 

100+ years of rain gauge record. At the present time, the drought is most severe 

eastward from southern Arizona, across New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and into Arkansas and Louisiana (Figure 1).* All of New Mexico is in drought. For New Mexico 

as a whole, the October to March period has been the 6th driest on record (116 

years; according to PRISM data) and two climate divisions in southern New Mexico 

have endured their 2nd and 3rd driest winters on record (Z. Guido, CLIMAS, pers. 

comm.). Since the start of the ‘‘water year’’ (October 1, 2010) all climate divisions 

in New Mexico measured precipitation less than 68% of the 1971-2000 average, and 

drought has worsened to the present (Figure 2). Headwater regions for New Mexico’s large rivers are also experiencing drought, a fact that has led to spring-summer 

streamflow forecasts across the state being well below normal as of April 1, 2011 

(Figure 3). 

THE NATURAL RANGE OF DROUGHT VARIABILITY IN THE SOUTHWEST

Although the current drought is quite notable, particularly as part of a drought 

that has plagued the Southwest off and on over the last decade, it is modest compared to some of the longer and more severe droughts of the last 1200 years 

(Woodhouse et al., 2010). For example, the state-the-art published tree-ring based 

streamflow reconstruction for the Colorado River at Lees Ferry (Meko et al., 2007) 

indicates that multiple ‘‘megadroughts’’ (droughts lasting multiple decades) have occurred in the Southwest, with the worst—in the 12th century—lasting over 30 

years. Most of these natural droughts were apparently driven by low precipitation 

during the winter and spring (Woodhouse et al., 2010), much like the drought currently affecting New Mexico (Figure 2). Most were also apparently associated, at 

least in part, with cool La Nin ̃ a-like conditions in the equatorial Pacific—again, 

quite similar to the current drought in New Mexico (Conroy et al., 2009; Seager and 

Vecchi, 2010). The difference between the current drought and the much longer and 

more severe droughts of the last 1200 years is that the latter droughts were likely 

associated with monger longer periods of below average sea surface temperatures 

in the equatorial Pacific. 

New scientific research, not yet published, provides evidence that the 

megadroughts currently believed by scientists and water managers alike to be the 

worst-case possible may not be as bad as it could get. Longer and more severe 

megadroughts occurred in both the Upper Colorado River Basin and the headwaters 

of the Rio Grande: 

• New paleoclimatic work at the University of Arizona indicates that even the 

worst southwestern droughts of the last 1200 years (i.e., the 12th century 
35 

megadrought) was eclipsed by a drought in the 2nd century A.D. that lasted 49 

years in the headwaters of the Rio Grande, and was interrupted by only one 

year with above normal precipitation (C. Routson, Woodhouse and Overpeck, in 

preparation) • Other new work at the University of Arizona also indicates that the severity 

of ‘‘worst-case’’ medieval period megadroughts of the last 1200 years (Meko et 

al., 2007) may have been underestimated by 20% or more. (Ault, Pederson, Cole, 

Overpeck, and Meko, in prep.; also G. Pederson et al. in prep.) 

WIDELY RECOGNIZED LIKELY CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON THE SOUTHWEST

Climate change is already clearly affecting the Southwest, particularly in terms 

of increasing temperature (Figure 4), decreasing precipitation falling as snow (Figure 5), decreasing spring snowpack, and decreasing Colorado River flow (Karl et al., 

2009; Overpeck and Udall, 2010). These changes were anticipated by climate scientists, and simulated by many climate models (e.g., note current temperature and 

precipitation projections, Figures 6 and 7). The mechanisms of change observed in 

nature are similar to those driving the change in the climate model simulations. All 

of these factors give the climate science community greater confidence in asserting 

that the current warming and drying trends will continue into the future unless 

greenhouse gas emissions are reduced significantly, and this spells trouble for water 

supplies throughout the Southwest, particularly where the supplies are currently 

snow-fed (e.g., the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers). 

Indeed, all of the published streamflow projections for the Colorado (the river that 

has received the most scientific attention) indicate future streamflow will be on average less in volume, with the chief uncertainty being how fast. Most recent work 

suggest a 10 to 20% decline by mid-century, with a finite chance that all reservoir 

storage on the Colorado could go dry absent effective shortage management 

(Rajagopalan et al., 2009; Overpeck and Udall, 2010). 

ADDITIONAL ISSUES THAT COULD PLACE SOUTHWEST SURFACE WATER SUPPLY

MORE AT RISK

1) Future behavior of the El Nin ̃ o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system could increase 

future drought risk substantially 

• The current drought, as well as the worst megadroughts of the last 1200 years, 

were all apparently associated with cool ‘‘La Nin ̃ a like’’ conditions in the equatorial Pacific, and this will likely be the case in the future. However, state-ofthe-art climate modeling is still not able to determine if there will be more or 

less La Nin ̃ a-like conditions in the future. If there are, then the worst-case 

droughts of the future might be substantially worse than currently simulated 

(Seager and Vecchi, 2009). 

2) More generally, current state-of-the-art climate models appear to be underestimating the true risk of future megadrought 

• New research results at the University of Arizona indicate that state-of-the-art 

climate models underestimate the full range of drought variability exhibited in 

a variety of paleoclimatic records. Correcting for this bias suggests that the odds 

that a megadrought like that of the 12th-century could occur in the next 90 

years are as high as one in two for parts of the Southwest (Ault, Pederson, Cole, 

Overpeck, and Meko, in prep.). 

3) It is unclear whether future changes in the summer monsoon will help offset water 

losses in the winter and spring, or whether summer drought could make the future situation more challenging 

• Projections of future monsoon rainfall are still highly uncertain because global 

models lack the realistic regional or ‘‘mesoscale’’ processes needed to simulate 

the monsoon correctly. However, work at the University of Arizona and elsewhere is employing both global and regional climate models to solve this problem. It also remains uncertain if the large-scale influences on summer precipitation in the Southwest are captured realistically enough in global models for regional modeling results to be robust. 

• As with cool-season precipitation (snow and rain), the 20th century record of 

summer monsoon rainfall variability underestimates the full range of variability 

that can occur naturally. For example, a new tree-ring reconstruction of monsoon variability over the last 350 years indicates that the 20th century lacked 

monsoon droughts of the type that occurred in the 19th century. Moreover, comparisons of the new monsoon reconstruction with cool-season drought reconstructions indicate that winter-spring droughts are never compensated fully by 
36 

wet monsoons, and that cool-season droughts are frequently accompanied by 

summer drought (work by University of Arizona climate scientists D. Griffin, 

C. Woodhouse and colleagues). 

4) Growing incidence of climate-related tree die-off could further limit future water 

supply 

• Forests and woodlands in the Southwest appear highly sensitive to drought and 

warmth, with over 7% of southwestern forest and woodland area in the region 

recently (since 1997) impacted by die-off of trees due to drought and insects 

since 1997, and an additional nearly 3% of forest and woodland area also affected by wildfires (Williams et al., 2010). • Growing drought and infestation-triggered tree die-off in the Southwest will 

likely affect water supply in different ways, and the latest research (Adams et 

al., 2011) suggests it would be prudent for water managers to assume the widespread (and growing) tree die-off in the Southwest could act to further limit 

available water in the future. 

5) Growing land-use and desertification in the Southwest could further reduce 

streamflow in snow-dominated river systems (e.g., the Colorado and Rio Grande 

rivers) 

• Recently published research (Painter et al., 2010) indicates that human landuse and desertification in the Southwest (and particularly in the Four Corners 

region) is already decreasing the duration of snow cover in the Colorado headwaters by several weeks, and that this in turn is likely contributing to reduced 

flows in at least the Colorado River. Better land-management could therefore 

yield greater water supply. 

BOTTOM-LINE ADVICE TO WATER MANAGERS IN NEW MEXICO AND THE SOUTHWEST

1) There is broad agreement in the climate science research community that 

the Southwest, including New Mexico, will very likely continue to warm. There 

is also a strong consensus that the same region will become drier and increasingly snow-free with time, particularly in the winter and spring. Climate science 

also suggests that the warmer atmosphere will lead to more frequent and more 

severe (drier) droughts in the future. All of the above changes have already 

started, in large part driven by human-caused climate change. 

2) However, even in the absence of significant human-caused climate change, 

the Southwest is prone to drought and megadrought much more severe than 

droughts witnessed in the last 100 years. The 2000-year record of drought in 

the region makes it clear that droughts lasting decades are likely independent 

of human-caused climate change. For this reason, the ‘‘no-regrets’’ strategy is 

to plan and prepare for droughts no matter the cause—human or natural—and 

to do so under the assumption that droughts will very likely be hotter and thus 

more severe in the future than in the past 2000 years. 

3) Scientists and water managers alike, however, should be careful not to assume the currently estimated ‘‘worst case’’ drought scenario will remain so for 

long. As climate science has advanced in the Southwest, there have been a 

steady progression of new results that imply that today’s ‘‘worst-case’’ drought 

scenario is tomorrow’s second-worst case scenario. Water managers should pay 

particular attention to the emerging science that has been highlighted in the 

testimony above. 

4) Finally, it is critical to realize that the people of New Mexico, the Southwest, and our nation can certainly make the worst case for the Southwest less 

worse by eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions that are the primary cause 

of the climate change that is already affecting the Southwest. 

Thank you Chairman Bingaman and colleagues for giving me the opportunity to 

discuss climate and water issues with you. 

REFERENCES CITED

Adams, H. D., C.H. Luce, D.D. Breshears, C.D. Allen, M. Weiler, V.C. Hale, A.M.S. 

Smith, T.E. Huxman. (2011). Ecohydrological consequences of drought-and infestation-triggered tree die-off: insights and hypotheses. Ecohydrology (in press). 

Conroy, J. L., J.T. Overpeck, J.E. Cole and M. Steinitz-Kannan. (2009). Variable oceanic teleconnections to Western North American drought over the last 1200 years. 

Geophysical Research Letters 36: L17703 10.1029/2009gl039558 

Karl, T. R., J. M. Melillo, and T. C. Peterson, editors. 2009. Global climate Change 

Impacts in the United States. Cambridge University Press, New York. 
37 

Meko, D. M., C. A. Woodhouse, C. A. Baisan, T. Knight, J. J. Lukas, M. K. Hughes, 

and M. W. Salzer. (2007). Medieval drought in the upper Colorado River Basin. 

Geophysical Research Letters 34. doi: 10.1029/2007GL029988. 

Overpeck, J. and B. Udall. (2010). Dry Times Ahead. Science 328:1642-1643. 

Painter, T. H., J. S. Deems, J. Belnap, A. F. Hamlet, C. C. Landry, and B. Udall. 

(2010). Response of Colorado River runoff to dust radiative forcing in snow. Proc. 

of the Natiional Academy of Sciences 107:17125-17130. 

Pierce, D. W., T. P. Barnett, H. G. Hidalgo, T. Das, C. Bonfils, B. D. Santer, G. Bala, 

M. D. Dettinger, D. R. Cayan, A. Mirin, A. W. Wood, and T. Nozawa. (2008). Attribution of Declining Western US Snowpack to Human Effects. Journal of Climate 

21:6425-6444. 

Rajagopalan, B., K. Nowak, J. Prairie, M. Hoerling, B. Harding, J. Barsugli, A. Ray, 

and B. Udall. (2009). Water supply risk on the Colorado River: Can management 

mitigate? Water Resources Research 45, W08201. 

Seager, R. and G. A. Vecchi. (2010). Greenhouse warming and the 21st century 

hydroclimate of southwestern North America. Proc. of the National Academy of 

Sciences 107:21277-21282. 

Williams, A. P., C. D. Allen, C. I. Millar, T. W. Swetnam, J. Michaelsen, C. J. Still, 

and S. W. Leavitt. (2010). Forest responses to increasing aridity and warmth in 

the southwestern United States. Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences 

107:21289-21294. 

Woodhouse, C. A., D. M. Meko, G. M. MacDonald, D. W. Stahle, and E. R. Cook. 

(2010). A 1,200-year perspective of 21st century drought in southwestern North 

America. Proc. of the National Academy of Sciences 107:21283-21288. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, appreciate that testimony. 

Dr. Hurd, why don’t you go right ahead and give us your views. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. HURD, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY, 

LAS CRUCES, NM 

Mr. HURD. All right. Mr. Chairman and members of the panel 

and audience members, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today and to provide testimony regarding my views on 

adaption to climate variability and change. 

Specifically I would like to first summarize how investing in 

adaptive capacity can reduce the possible magnitude and extent of 

adverse consequences. Then provide some examples that characterize some of the strategies, opportunities, and options available 

to governments and communities. 

In appearing before you today, I’m representing my own individual views and not those of any current or past employer, organization, or association. My views have been informed by nearly 2 

decades of research on climate change economics, impact, and adaptation, with a primary focus on agricultural and water resources. 

For example, during my current faculty appointment for the past 

10 years with New Mexico State University, I’ve had the opportunity to study and research water, agricultural, and economic systems in New Mexico and across the Southwest including both the 

Rio Grande and Colorado River watersheds. 

We are well aware of many instances and anecdotes that raise 

our concern about the nature and power of climate and of extreme 

weather events. Even in the most recent past, we are reminded the 

power of intense storms including hurricanes, the tornados that are 

devastating communities around the country these days right now, 

snow and ice storms; of the human and economic losses from extended periods of both high and low temperatures, wildfires, and 

persistent droughts and floods. 
38 

The chronicle of weather and climate is ever present in our consciousness such that we constantly observe, track, sometimes 

name, and often recollect those phenomena. ‘‘How is the weather’’ 

we ask. Answers and stories abound. ‘‘Fine, gloomy, worst in decades, not since records have been kept.’’ 

Permit me just a moment to give a quick anecdote from my experience this past winter. Late January and early February saw temperatures lower and for longer periods than ever seen before in 

Southern New Mexico, far West Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico. 

In my 10 years, I had never seen single digits let alone sub-zero 

temperatures in the deserts near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The 

mercury hit a low of minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit, and never rose 

above freezing for 4 consecutive days. 

Perhaps most surprising was the incapacity of the electrical system to cope with the event. For a week residents dealt with rolling 

blackouts, closed schools, universities, and businesses, broken pipes 

and pumps, and flooded rooms. Crop losses are widespread. 

Homeowners and businesses across the region—some are now 

just beginning to confront the damages and to replace lots of damaged landscape plants and trees. Not to mention the recent heat 

wave and record high temperatures in March and April that have 

set West Texas ablaze. 

Some might begin to ask questions about this region’s capacity 

to adapt and the capability of utilities, residents, and businesses to 

cope with such climatic extremes. It is difficult to know and to assign blame to so-called acts of God. Of course, there are limits to 

what even the best-prepared and well-adapted community can hope 

to withstand. 

But that really is not the point. Rather the point I’d like to make 

should be focused on future preparedness and what might be done 

to lessen the losses and damages in the future. 

Climate extremes I think we can generally agree present challenges to vulnerable communities, whether or not these extreme 

events are attributable to normal variability or to climate changes 

induced by rising greenhouse gas concentrations. It doesn’t matter. 

How well communities anticipate and assess the likelihood of climate extremes and how well they choose to prepare for them depends to a large extent on 4 key ingredients: First quality and accessibility of climate change scenarios and information including 

frameworks to use and transform them into relevant forms for decisionmakers, the local decisionmakers. Following the work that’s 

coming out of the SECURE Waters report Mr. Connor had presented is a great step in that direction. 

Understanding—second, understanding an assessment of vulnerable environmental and economic systems and their impacts, including the sensitivity to climate, the degree and routes of exposure, and the capacity that these systems have to adapt. 

Third, the need—the capacity to identify trends and render plausible scenarios not only of changes in climate and climate extremes, 

but the demographic and economic conditions, relevant institutions 

and policies, and environmental stresses and conditions that are 

expected to emerge over the coming decades. 

Finally the fourth ingredient that’s very critical is the state of institutional preparedness, our leadership and support for inte-
39 

grating climate science into relevant and appropriate programs, 

procedures, and policies. 

Time does not permit addressing each ingredient. But I will draw 

attention to the second component; namely, that of assessing vulnerability and quickly illustrate key issues looking at water and 

adaptation. 

Essentially one of the goals of most water supply systems and institutions especially in the West thanks in large part to the Bureau 

of Reclamation is to help communities cope with a moderate range 

of climate and water supply variability. 

With few exceptions most water system and utility managers 

agree that U.S. communities, industries, and water users are generally well-prepared and well-adapted to manage successfully within normal fluctuations, often including occasional extremes such as 

events that typically occur once every decade or 2. 

However, problems begin to arise when relatively rare or unexpected events occur and reoccur with unusual frequency. Witness, 

for example, the flooding along the Red River of the North between 

Minnesota and North Dakota, where historic floods once thought to 

be rarer than once in 100 are occurring surprisingly in rapid succession. 

If as the accumulated science indicates climate changes can result from rising greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions and 

if these changes contribute to greater climate uncertainty and extreme events such as those that Dr. Overpeck has just described, 

then it might be reasonable and prudent to expect more severe 

and/or frequent extreme events. 

Such events can quickly become a significant economic and environmental concern, pushing beyond the prevailing capacities of 

water users to cope and indicating the need for additional adaptive 

capacity. Adaptation as such can be viewed as a complement to climate change mitigation activities within a comprehensive and coordinated climate strategy. 

It is during the process of assessing vulnerability that the question of adaptation begins to arise. For example, with their primary 

focus on the physical systems, the earliest climate change impact 

assessments often neglected expected natural responses from affected people such as farmers once they had realized that a change 

occurred. 

After all, a great evolutionary strength of humans is their capacity to observe and recognize changing conditions and to react accordingly, although it might take some time to realize, confirm, and 

learn that the observed changes are likely to persist. 

This capacity to recognize and react to changing conditions confers economic advantage and success. However, and this is key, 

even greater advantage and long run economic success follows from 

the ability to observe patterns and trends; and to combine these 

with knowledge and understanding of our economic and environmental systems in anticipation of likely outcomes and consequences. 

I describe in my written testimony a little bit more about the differences between reactive and anticipatory adaptation. But in the 

interest of time and to make my presentation right now brief, I’d 

like to finish with some specific adaptation strategies and opportu-
40 

nities that I feel we have before us. They fall into 4 broad categories. 

No. 1, I think we should work toward improving science and 

technical information including development, integration, education, and dissemination. A great start of that would be the work 

of the Bureau and the USGS in this regard. 

There is a need for continued development of climate, environmental, and resource management sciences and their integration. 

For example, there has been progress in development of assessment methods. But uncertainties which compound and cascade 

throughout the process result in often broad and otherwise not-well 

defined scenarios that are not very useful for local scale planning. 

By facilitating partnerships and strategic alliances between Federal and State agencies, the national laboratories, local governments, universities, and NGO’s, cross-organization capacities can 

be better harnessed and focused. 

Second, look toward developing more appropriate risk management institutions and policies. Risk management institutions, policies, and insurance programs are often at odds, resulting in inappropriate development in high-risk areas; and then promoting rebuilding without appropriate regard to risks. 

It might be prudent to develop programs and policies with greater risk sharing and stakeholder awareness rather than blanket protection from climate-related risks. 

Third, increase the use of resource markets and incentive-based 

policy designs. The goal is to create a context in which communities, organizations, and individuals can make smarter decisions 

and wiser choices. Institutions and policies that establish and use 

decentralized approaches help to provide appropriate economic signals to decisionmakers and generally improve compliance and voluntary solutions. 

For example, water-use efficiency could be promoted, resulting in 

more flexibility and responsiveness to climate changes; for example, the work that the State Engineer is doing on water rights adjudication, efforts to make those water rights better defined, rightholders could be compensated or could lease the value of saved 

water in a similar fashion as we have in electricity cogeneration 

and buy-back. 

Finally and my last example here, add flexibility and safety to 

infrastructure design and construction and incorporate climate factors in land-use planning and building codes. Especially with longlived infrastructure, the added costs may provide good value in providing both additional services and reliability. 

Risk-appropriate zoning and building codes may also add to 

short-run costs but provide better long-run protection. An example 

of this is the LEED certification program for energy efficiency in 

building design. 

That’s the end of my remarks. I thank you, Senator, for your interest and contribution to this important topic. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hurd follows:] 
41 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. HURD, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, AGRICULTURAL

ECONOMICS, NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY, LAS CRUCES, NM 

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today and to provide testimony regarding my views on adaptation 

to climate variability and change. Specifically, I would like to first summarize how 

investing in adaptive capacity can reduce the possible magnitude and extent of adverse consequences, and then provide some examples that characterize some of the 

strategies, opportunities and options available to governments and communities. In 

appearing before you today, I am representing my own individual views, and not 

those of any current or past employer, organization, or association. My views have 

been informed by nearly two decades of research on climate change economics, impacts and adaptation, with a primary focus on agricultural and water resources. For 

example, during my current faculty appointment for the past ten years with New 

Mexico State University, I have had the opportunity to study and research water, 

agricultural, and economic systems in New Mexico, and across the Southwest including both the Rio Grande and Colorado River watersheds. 

KEY INGREDIENTS FOR SUCCESSFUL CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

We are all well aware of many instances and anecdotes that raise our concern 

about the nature and power of climate and of extreme weather events. Even in the 

most recent past we are reminded of the power of intense storms including hurricanes, tornadoes, snow and ice storms, of the human and economic losses from extended periods of both high and low temperatures, wildfires and persistent droughts 

and floods. The chronicle of weather and climate is ever present in our consciousness such that we constantly observe, track, sometimes name and often recollect 

these phenomena. ‘‘How is the weather?’’ we ask. Answers and stories abound. 

‘‘Fine.’’ ‘‘Gloomy’’. ‘‘Worst in decades.’’ ‘‘Not since records have been kept.’’ Permit 

me to give a quick anecdote from my experience this past winter. Late January and 

early February saw temperatures lower and for longer periods than ever seen before 

in southern New Mexico, Far West Texas, and Chihuahua, Mexico. In my ten years 

I had never seen single digits let alone sub-zero temperatures in the deserts near 

Las Cruces, New Mexico. The mercury hit a low of ¥6 degrees Fahrenheit, and 

never rose above freezing for four consecutive days. 

Perhaps most surprising was the incapacity of the electrical system to cope with 

the event. For a week residents dealt with rolling blackouts, closed schools, universities, and businesses, broken pipes and pumps, and flooded rooms. Crop losses are 

widespread and homeowners and businesses across the region are just now beginning to confront damages and to replace damaged landscape plants and trees. Not 

to mention the recent heat wave and record high temperatures in March and April 

that have set west Texas ablaze. Some might begin to ask questions about this region’s capacity to adapt and the capability of utilities, residents and businesses to 

cope with such climatic extremes. It is difficult to know, and to assign blame, to socalled ‘acts of god.’ And of course there are limits to what even the best-prepared 

and well-adapted community can hope to withstand. But that really is not the point. 

Rather the point should be focused on future preparedness, and what might be done 

to lessen the losses and damages in the future. 

Climate extremes, I think we can generally agree, present challenges to vulnerable communities—whether or not these extreme events are attributable to ‘normal’ 

variability or to climate changes induced by rising greenhouse gas concentrations. 

How well communities anticipate and assess the likelihood of climate extremes, and 

how well they choose to prepare for them depends to a large extent on four key ingredients: 

• Quality and accessibility of climate change scenarios and information including 

frameworks to use and transform them into relevant forms for decision makers. 

• Understanding and assessment of vulnerable environmental and economic systems and impacts, including sensitivity to climate, degree of exposure, and capacity to adapt. 

• Capacity to identify trends and and render plausible scenarios not only of 

changes in climate and climate extremes, but of demographic and economic conditions, relevant institutions and policies, and environmental stresses and conditions. 

• State of institutional preparedness, leadership and support for integrating climate science into relevant and appropriate programs, procedures and policies. 
42 

* Exhibits 1 and 2 have been retained in committee files. 

Time does not permit addressing each ingredient but I will draw attention to the 

second component, namely that of assessing vulnerability. I will quickly illustrate 

some key issues using water resources as an example, looking first at the impacts 

and then at the potential for adaptation. 

CAN ADAPTATION REDUCE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES?

Essentially one of the goals of most water supply systems and institutions, especially in the West, is to help communities cope with a moderate range of climate 

and water supply variability. With few exceptions, most water system and utility 

managers agree that U.S. communities, industries and water users are generally 

prepared and well adapted to manage successfully within ‘normal’ fluctuations, 

often including occasional extremes (such as events that typically occur once every 

decade or two). However, problems begin to arise when relatively rare or unexpected 

events occur and re-occur with unusual frequency (such as flooding along the Red 

River of the North where historic floods once thought to be rarer than once in 100 

years are occurring in surprising rapid succession). If, as the accumulated science 

indicates, climate changes can result from rising greenhouse gas concentrations and 

emissions, and if these changes contribute to greater climate uncertainty and extreme events, then it might be reasonable and prudent to expect more severe and/ 

or frequent extreme events. Such events can quickly become a significant economic 

and environmental concern, pushing beyond the prevailing capacities of water users 

to cope, and indicating the need for additional adaptive capacity. Adaptation as such 

can be viewed as a complement to climate change mitigation activities within a comprehensive and coordinated climate strategy. 

To determine if and how adaptations can reduce economic and environmental consequences, we need to first identify and estimate vulnerabilities and specific impacts. A general approach would begin with an examination of the physical and environmental systems that support economic and environmental health. For water resources this begins with the question, ‘‘What if climate changes and it brings about 

changes in streamflows, water storage, and water availability?’’ which draws upon 

the expertise of climate and hydrology scientists. The result is a scenario analysis 

which could include a projection of how a river’s hydrograph could be expected to 

change (an example is shown in Exhibit 1).* 

Then economic and environmental scientists can proceed to ask: ‘‘What might 

these changes in streamflows imply for ...’’ 

• Water storage and distribution systems 

• Urban and rural water users 

• Water quality 

• Hydropower 

• Recreational and cultural functions 

• Riparian ecosystems and migratory patterns 

• Local employment, jobs, and income? 

A quick summary of key climate change impacts estimated for the Rio Grande by 

Hurd and Coonrod (2007) indicate the likelihood of: 

• Earlier snowmelt and peak runoff, greater evaporation losses, and reduced 

streamflows even if total annual precipitation should increase, and if precipitation should fall, runoff could be reduced by as much as 1/3. 

• Rising populations and lower water supplies will raise pressure to tighten and 

fine tune water management systems. Systems with limited storage capacities 

are most vulnerable. 

• Projected annual economic losses than range from $13 million to $115 million 

by 2030, and from $21 million to as much as $300 million by 2080. 

• Traditional agricultural systems and rural communities are most at risk, and 

may need transitional assistance. 

• Losses to New Mexico’s residents, tourists, and wildlife could go well beyond 

such market-derived figures, including losses to the environment, water quality, 

and quality of life. 

It is during the process of assessing vulnerability that the question of adaptation 

begins to arise. For example, with their primary focus on the physical systems, the 

earliest climate change impact assessments often neglected expected natural responses from affected people, such as farmers, once they had realized that a change 

occurred. After all, a great evolutionary strength of humans is their capacity to observe and recognize changing conditions and to react accordingly (although it might 
43 

take some time to realize, confirm and learn that the observed changes are likely 

to persist). 

This capacity to recognize and react to changing conditions confers economic advantage and success. However, and this is KEY, even greater advantage and longrun economic success follows from the ability to observe patterns and trends, and 

to combine these with knowledge and understanding of our economic and environmental systems in anticipation of likely outcomes and consequences. It is worth taking a moment to more clearly illustrate the essential difference between reactive 

and anticipatory (or proactive) adaptation strategies. This illustration also highlights the importance of investment timing in the effort to build adaptive capacity. 

Imagine that we can illustrate these differences using a timeline over which net 

economic performance is measured (call it something like ‘gross domestic happiness’ 

to distinguish from the flawed concept of ‘gross domestic product’—which most often 

shows a boost to economic production after a disaster). Also imagine that a significant climate catastrophe occurs at a given point in the timeline (see Exhibit 2). 

Consider the case of reactive adaptation, and note that it can result from either 

of two situations. The first is when little or no consideration is given at all to evolving trends and future conditions or events. In this case any adaptation that occurs 

is after-the-fact and in response to events and conditions after they have occurred. 

The second way that results in a reactive response is when investment decisions are 

delayed or postponed, either rationally and deliberately because of inherent uncertainties and costs, or inadvertently because of indecision. In either of these cases 

the outcomes are similar, net economic benefits are positive and continue to grow 

until the adverse event or change. A significant adverse event then occurs, significant economic losses ensue, and the path to recovery is protracted and costly. After 

recovery and the economy is reestablished, which now may even perform better than 

before because degraded and depreciated infrastructure has been replaced (like with 

the Marshall Plan). But maybe the redevelopment occurs without any change for future defenses, production of economic and environmental services continues—until 

the next adverse event. Several questions then arise, ‘‘Could we have done better?’’ 

‘‘Were events and changes foreseeable?’’ And, ‘‘Would better preparations, designs 

and policies have lessened the damages and speeded recovery?’’ 

Now consider a well planned and executed proactive adaptation strategy, one that 

tries to anticipate changing conditions and to prepare for them in advance. In this 

manner, prior and/or continuing investment to build and strengthen adaptive capacity will undoubtedly redirect resources away from current consumption, resulting in 

lower net economic rewards relative to no-or postponed-investment, but only for the 

duration until the adverse event occurs. Generally, if the adverse event is not a 

question of ‘if’ but rather ‘when’, then anticipatory adaptation strategies share many 

similar aspects to a prudent and effective risk management or insurance-type strategies. In this case, when the adverse event occurs there is also the potential for significant economic loss and disruption but with effective preparation it may only be 

a fraction of what it would have been. In addition, with proactive adaptation the 

path and duration of economic recovery may be much shorter, resulting in greater 

net economic performance in the long-run. 

STRATEGIES, OPPORTUNITIES AND OPTIONS TO STRENGTHEN ADAPTIVE CAPACITY

Many adaptation strategies and opportunities fall within four broad categories. 

1. Improve science and technical information including development, integration, 

education, and dissemination 

There is a need for continued development of climate, environmental, and resource management sciences and their integration. For example, there has been 

progress in development of assessment methods but uncertainties which compound 

and cascade throughout the process result in often broad and otherwise not-well defined scenarios that are not very useful for local scale planning. By facilitating partnerships and strategic alliances between Federal and State agencies, National Laboratories, local governments, universities, and NGOs cross-organization capacities 

can be better harnessed and focused. 

2. Develop appropriate risk management institutions and policies 

Risk management institutions, policies and insurance programs are often at odds, 

resulting in inappropriate development in high risk areas, and then promoting rebuilding without appropriate regard to risks. It might be prudent to develop programs and policies with greater ‘risk sharing’ and stakeholder awareness rather 

than ‘blanket protection’ from climate-related risks. 
44 

3. Increase the use of resource markets and incentive-based policy designs 

The goal is to create a context in which communities, organization, and individuals can make smarter decisions and wiser choices. Institutions and policies that 

establish and use decentralized approaches help to provide appropriate economic 

signals to decision makers and generally improve compliance and voluntary solutions. For example, water-use efficiency could be promoted, resulting in more flexibility and responsiveness to climate changes if water-rights were better defined and 

right-holders could be compensated or could lease the value of ‘saved’ water. In a 

similar fashion to electricity cogeneration and buy-back. 

4. Add flexibility and safety to infrastructure design and construction, and incorporate climate factors in land-use planning and building codes 

Especially with long-lived infrastructure, the added costs may provide good value 

in providing both additional services and reliability. Risk-appropriate zoning and 

building codes also may add to short-run costs but provide better long-run protection. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Hurd. 

Let me start with a question or 2 about—Dr. Overpeck, your description of these megadroughts in the 12th century and before and 

since the 12th century leads me to wonder whether or not we are 

correct in assuming as I have—I have assumed that a lot of the 

drought problem that we might face in the future in the Southwest 

was related to climate change. 

That as temperatures warmed because of climate change or as 

they’re expected, temperatures are expected to warm, that that 

would then in some way be a cause of the drought situation or 

bring about the drought situation. What you described would lead 

me to conclude that maybe the drought situation has been there, 

will be there in the future regardless of what happens to the temperature. 

I guess I’m just trying to get straight in my head the extent to 

which hot and dry necessarily go together here in this process or 

whether we’re really dealing with 2 separate phenomena which are 

somewhat disconnected. 

Mr. OVERPECK. Right. You know, the scientific community is trying to disentangle these as we speak. It’s not a completely straightforward problem. But we really do have 2 issues going on here. 

One is that we live in a drought-prone, dry part of the world. You 

can see these dry belts on both sides of the equator. That is wellknown climate science. 

We can see in the Southwest ample evidence, for example, ageold pueblos in ruins, that there has been drought. That’s essentially tied to these megadroughts I’ve been talking about. The best 

science says that we’ve been in a drought-prone region, we’ll always be in a drought-prone region in the future, meaning it’s a noregret strategy to prepare for these long droughts even in the absence of climate change. 

Now, when you add climate change to the equation, it makes the 

situation a heck of a lot worse. The first and foremost problem is 

the temperature rise that you’ve been talking about. You’re absolutely right that there’s a trend in the average background climate 

of the Southwest; that is, toward warmer and drier conditions. 

That is the climate, the average climate on which these droughts, 

these extreme events will be superimposed. So now we have these 

superimposed on a relatively wet Southwestern climate as in the 

past. In the future it will be drier and drier so the droughts will 

likely be worse and worse. 
45 

That will be driven both by the temperature increases which we 

have huge confidence is going to occur as well as reductions in, you 

know, the baseline average precipitation. So these things are pretty 

tightly connected. 

The third aspect of this is that climate theory suggests that, and 

we’re seeing this worldwide, with global warming droughts should 

be more frequent in these dry zones. 

So all things equal, even though we have quite a bit of uncertainty with this one in this region, if you’re a betting person, you 

would say we’re going to have more frequent drought in the future. 

For us that means more frequent megadrought as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Let me ask Mike a question. Then if either 

or the other of you want to comment, please do. 

First let me also commend you for this report. I think it’s an excellent first report. As I understand the legislation that both of us 

worked on here, this SECURE Water Act Section 9503 

[C] report is to be done or updated every 5 years, is that the 

plan? 

Mr. CONNOR. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So this is the first of those. I think it’s an excellent effort. This chart that’s up here on the left, Bureau of Reclamation chart with the heading Climate Change Impacts in Western Basins, again you start out and it says increasing temperature, 

that’s in all basins. I understand that. 

Mr. CONNOR. Correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, there’s no confusion there. The next 2 categories on your chart are a little—raise other questions, though. 

You’ve got decreasing precipitation which is what we’ve been talking about here primarily, and that is here in the Rio Grande Valley, Lower Colorado River Basin—or Upper Colorado River Basin. 

But then the next one is increased precipitation. So we are in a 

circumstance where your report is concluding that, as we are going 

to face more and more drought in this area, other river basins are 

going to face more and more precipitation. 

I guess I’m questioning how confident we are in those predictions, where we can say, you know, there’s good consensus—as 

Dr. Overpeck just said, there’s good consensus among scientists 

that the temperature is going to go up worldwide. 

Is there also good consensus as to where the droughts are going 

to worsen and where the precipitation is going to increase? 

Mr. CONNOR. I don’t think there’s as much confidence level in 

those kind of predictions as there are with respect to temperature 

rise. Let me just say with respect to—and I think Dr. Overpeck— 

I’m going to be cautious here because I’m going to be followed up 

by I think a true expert here with respect to some of the work done 

by the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

That’s kind of the foundation work for what we did in the SECURE Water Act report. So we used the global climate circulation 

models there and the climate change projections that were developed by the IPCC. 

So from that it’s foundational and from our view the gold standard for projections of what’s going to change over time. So I think 

inherent even within those reports done by the IPCC there’s the 
46 

recognition of some inherent uncertainty with respect to changes in 

precipitation patterns. 

Now, we took that a step further and then we combined that 

with hydrologic models and then did some downscaling that I 

think—that’s kind of the Reclamation new work that’s been put 

into these reports. That’s been peer-reviewed. But there’s still—it 

builds off of that, those models, with respect to changing precipitation patterns, et cetera, that do have some uncertainty. So we’ve 

tried to describe that in the report in a way to be transparent. 

As you mentioned the idea over time is to get better information, 

better models, and then reassess risks through these 5-year 

iterations of our report. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Overpeck, did you want to add anything to 

that? 

Mr. OVERPECK. Sure. I think Mike got it right. I do want to say 

once again I believe his report, having read the whole thing, is definitely state-of-the-art. 

The scientific community is inherently quite conservative on 

some issues. One of the things—and we like to highlight the uncertainties. There is a good deal of uncertainty about precipitation in 

many parts of the world and how it will change. 

But there is—seems to be a higher than average certainty that 

in our part of the world, the Southwest, we should see a steady decline. Not every year. But decade by decade it should get drier and 

drier here in the Southwest just as to the north of us it should get 

wetter. 

The reason for this is tied to how climate, global climate, hemispheric climate and warming affects the mean circulation of the atmosphere. It acts to actually drive the late winter spring storm 

tracks northward as the planet warms. 

We see this happening now, we see it in models, we see it in 

paleoclimates. So in ancient periods, you know, back in the ice 

ages, for example, when we had warm periods interrupting the ice 

ages, this same phenomena occurred, the storm tracks moved 

northward. 

The thing that’s worrisome to me—and again my job here I see 

on this panel is to be a little less conservative and look at where 

are those places where we better make sure we got it right. So we 

don’t—avoid, you know, an earthquake/tsunami situation or are 

terribly surprised by something really much worse than we anticipated. 

One of the things that worries me is that in both hemispheres 

you see this widening of the tropical belts, movement polar-ward 

of the westerly circulation, the circulation that brings our late season snow pack. The only difference is in mother nature it’s happening faster than the models say it should be happening. 

Now, we don’t know why that’s occurring. It could be because the 

system is just more sensitive than we thought, some of the models 

simulate more sensitivity. Again the Bureau of Rec is playing it 

safe. They’re looking at all the models. That’s probably the best— 

wisest move to get the most likely outcome. 

Or is it because of the interaction of the climate change problem 

and the stratospheric ozone problem. That is affecting the circulation as well, because we’re developing now an ozone hole in the 
47 

northern hemisphere. That also acts to tighten up the circulation 

in the northern hemisphere. That is also going to continue into the 

future. 

So whatever reason the big uncertainty here is just maybe how 

far north this dry belt will actually progress through this century. 

It might be as the Bureau of Reclamation portrayed it, as the IPCC 

portrayed it. It might be further north, in which case things will 

be a little less fun in the United States of America. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask an obvious question here. Is there— 

is there—is the modeling that is—that we are relying on here, that 

the Bureau of Reclamation is relying on in preparing this report, 

is this accepted as the modeling that best incorporates the data 

that we have and information we have going forward or is there 

someone else with a different model? 

I mean could we be having a hearing with a different set of experts who made their conclusions based on a different model and 

they would be telling me just the opposite as to—maybe not as to 

the temperature rise. But as to the places where the drought would 

occur and the places where the precipitation would occur? 

Mr. OVERPECK. I think you would have a tough time finding any 

expert who has worked on climate for decades to, you know, say 

that the general pattern that’s reflected in the Bureau of Reclamation report and in the IPCC results is wrong. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s the pattern on precipitation as well as the 

pattern on temperature? 

Mr. OVERPECK. Yes. I mean everyone would say it’s going to 

warm. It’s a question of how much it’s going to warm. We can talk 

about that if you wish, because again I think it could warm more, 

especially if we let greenhouse gases go unchecked as we are. It 

could warm substantially more than is reflected in the results. But 

again they’re looking at the average across many models and scenarios. 

The way the scientific community works is there’s always a new 

model. One of the reasons we have the Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change is because the governments of the Intergovernmental Panel, meaning over 100 nations of the world, said—people 

like yourself, leaders of these countries said we really need to have, 

you know, a consensus. 

So in these cycles that last approximately 7 years, the new models are brought together and assessed together, the newest results, 

and brought out and peer-reviewed and essentially work their 

way—eventually work their way into these management documents. 

So we’re now in midway through the next cycle that will update 

the work that’s in the Bureau of Reclamation. But I need to emphasize that right now what they’ve got in there is state-of-the-art 

and best we know. 

The CHAIRMAN. So by the time the next 5-year report is done, 

there will be a new model or an updated model? 

Mr. OVERPECK. There will be many models. They will be analyzed and they might give a different picture. What we will not see, 

though, is a change away from it’s going to warm. It’s going to 

warm a lot. 
48 

What we will not see I believe is that it’s going to get wetter in 

the Southwest. What we might see is that it will get drier in some 

of the places that the Bureau of Reclamation now is saying might 

get wetter. So there’s some uncertainty there. But the big things 

especially that matter to us in the Southwest are unlikely to 

change. 

What we’ll also see in this new report is more addressing of this 

issue of the droughts I think and incorporating those into the same 

picture. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mike, could you give me a little more 

explanation of this other report that you indicate is forthcoming 

that the Geological Survey is working on and what will it address 

that has not been addressed in the report that you’ve released this 

week? 

Mr. CONNOR. I kind of look at the 2 reports as very much working together. Our report being very much—I guess I would say the 

primary audience is the water user community and certainly policymakers, about what we can do to best assess the risks out there 

right now as to how water resources management—water resources 

supplies are going to change and how management is going to 

change. 

The idea—that’s the 9503 report. The 9506 report is more geared 

toward a scientific basis, which is what kind of inputs do we have, 

data inputs, observational capabilities to take in data about water 

resources, about the use of water resources, et cetera, about—more 

data with respect to climate, and where do we have gaps and how 

we can improve and update those data systems. 

So that’s what the USGS in collaboration with a number of Federal and State agencies and other entities was putting together, 

kind of a very science-based approach on how to get the best data 

and where we should go from a policy perspective. 

The beauty of it, though, is I think the idea here. I think Dr. 

Overpeck mentioned this earlier, is we need to bring the science 

community, the water manager community, and the policymaker 

community all together. 

That’s hopefully what’s going to keep occurring with these separate reports that come out that build upon each other; and we use 

and we improve our data collection and we improve our modeling; 

therefore, we improve or risk assessments, et cetera. 

So I think they’re very much going to work in synergy together, 

but they do have different purposes coming out of the gate. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask a more practical question. For communities that are encountering very severe drought conditions here 

in New Mexico, are there programs of assistance that the Bureau 

of Reclamation can provide or through the Department of Agriculture, are there ways that these communities can get assistance 

in dealing with drought circumstances? 

Mr. CONNOR. There are. I guess initially I would go back to saying the best thing that we can do in reacting to the drought is to 

not do it after it occurs. 

So a lot of the assistance or activity that we’ve got ongoing, 

whether it be the Middle Rio Grande, with the issues of trying to 

secure water supplies for—to ensure that we’re in compliance with 

the Biological Opinion or in the Pecos River Basin is to create op-
49 

portunities so that we can access supplemental water supplies, that 

we have them in hand, that we know other opportunities to get 

more in a situation like this year, where we may need additional 

water supplies, because we first want to avoid that crisis from not 

being in compliance with Federal law. Because that’s going to affect not just the Bureau of Reclamation but all water users up and 

down. 

Certainly as Esteven mentioned a lot of the communities have diversified their own supplies, the city of Albuquerque, the city of 

Santa Fe. So they’ve got groundwater resources, they’ve got surface 

water resources. That’s going to help them over time deal with the 

drought situation. 

We do have a drought relief program within the Bureau of Reclamation. We’ve used that within the last decade on numerous occasions within New Mexico to drill, provide resources to drill supplemental wells. We’ve still got some activity going on. 

We’ve partnered up with the Indian Health Service on many 

pueblos to drill some supplemental wells. We don’t have a lot of resources in that particular program right now. So we are looking at 

other opportunities to partner up with USDA which does have 

drought relief programs. 

So there are just inherently those opportunities to react and 

bring immediate resources to the table. But at this point in time, 

it’s hard to get wells drilled quick enough to provide water when 

you’re in the middle of a drought. Sometimes as I mentioned we’re 

more left in the position of mitigating economic losses in those 

types of situations. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Hurd, let me ask you, one of the—you had 

your 4 strategies and opportunities and recommendations here in 

your testimony. You talk about developing appropriate risk management institutions and policies. 

You say ‘‘Risk management institutions, policies, and insurance 

programs are often at odds, resulting in inappropriate development 

in high-risk areas and then promoting rebuilding without appropriate regards to risk.’’ Then you also say ‘‘It might be prudent to 

develop programs and policies with greater risk sharing and stakeholder awareness rather than blanket protection.’’ Could you elaborate on what you—maybe give an example of what you’re talking 

about there so I have a better understanding of what you’re recommending. 

Mr. HURD. Certainly. Thank you again. One of the ways in which 

I’ve observed that risk—risk-prone areas, for example, in sea level 

coastal communities, where sea level storms or sea level rise could 

be affecting properties and communities, we have flooding events 

that are going on unfortunately perhaps as we speak in the Midwest as the rise of the Ohio River and the Mississippi River inundates some communities, protected ostensibly by levees that may or 

may not be well-developed or well-managed for flood protection and 

in protecting or ostensibly protecting areas that may in the future, 

if we gave regard to the climate science, the changing risk-prone 

nature of some of these areas might be affected. 

In the Southwest what—we will see that—similar types of events 

again related to flood risk, development near arroyos. We saw the 

floods that were quite tremendous in 2006 that flooded the commu-
50 

nity of Hatch and great floods through the city of El Paso as well 

and making sure that we are aware of what those flood risks are 

along the arroyos and riverbanks. 

I do know the flood—the FEMA agency has been developing new 

flood risk maps. Those are often quite contentious as you are probably well aware and affecting how risk—flood insurance is provided 

and which communities are at risk. 

Oftentimes those—even those updated flood risk maps are not reflecting anything to do with changes in climate. So what I’m suggesting is that we ought to develop some ways and tools and methods to enhance those kinds of development. 

Similar things with drought risk and crop insurance. We ought 

to be able to provide better information and better tools to farmers 

on crops that are likely to succeed in certain areas and reduce our 

coverages of—in regions where drought risk is rising or changing. 

Maybe we need to have better information to promote awareness 

and responsible behavior from resource owners. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. I appreciate very much the great testimony 

of all of you and appreciate the hard work that went into developing the report that the Bureau of Reclamation has done. We 

thank you all for coming and participating in the hearing. 

Let me indicate that we will be glad to accept statements for the 

record that we will include in the committee record of this hearing. 

They can be submitted to our committee, which—the same website, 

what, energy dot Senate dot gov through the 11th of May. 

So I thank everyone for participating, thanks for coming. We will 

stop the hearing at this point. 

[Whereupon, at 3:10 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 
(51) 

1The six pilot states were Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, and Texas. Additionally, Idaho, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington and Wyoming volunteered as pilots but were not included given limited oversight resources. 

APPENDIX 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE REIMER, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS DIRECTOR, ON BEHALF OF

NATIONAL GROUND WATER ASSOCIATION, WESTERVILLE, OH 

The National Ground Water Association (NGWA) appreciates the opportunity to 

provide testimony for this hearing. NGWA is the world’s largest association of 

groundwater professionals, representing public and private sector engineers, scientists, water well contractors, manufacturers, and suppliers of groundwater related 

products and services. NGWA’s comments will focus on groundwater’s role during 

droughts and the scientific understanding of impacts of climate change on groundwater resources. 

Groundwater, the nation’s subsurface reservoir, will be relied on more in the future, to help balance the larger swings in precipitation and associated increased demands caused by heat and drought. Groundwater will also be used to increase water 

supply reliability through periods of climate fluctuations and may serve as future 

repositories for CO2 emissions. There will be more emphasis on conjunctive use, 

which involves the coordinated and planned operation of both surface and groundwater resources for conservation and optimal use. There will be an increased focus 

on efforts to manage aquifer recharge, and there should be a greater emphasis on 

protecting our valuable groundwater supplies. 

Groundwater has and continues to take on an expanding and pivotal role in water 

resource planning. The expanding emphasis on the need and usage of groundwater 

resources will require policy tools based on sound science to provide the nation with 

safe, reliable water supplies. 

While groundwater management decision making is most effective when done at 

the state and local level where site-specific considerations can be taken into account, 

the federal government is currently playing and must continue to play a leadership 

role. Federal leadership is needed to help ensure these water professionals have the 

tools they need to promote the long-term sustainable use of our groundwater resources, including addressing the potential impacts of climate change. 

In particular, NGWA calls on the federal government to provide federal funding 

to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ground Water Resources Program to begin implementation of a systematic nationwide groundwater level and quality monitoring network and data management system. Currently, there is no systematic nationwide 

groundwater level or quality monitoring network. 

Congress authorized a national groundwater monitoring network with passage of 

Public Law 111-11 (Omnibus Public Land Management Act) in 2009. In 2010, six 

states1 voluntarily pilot tested concepts for a national groundwater monitoring network as developed by the federal Advisory Committee on Water Information’s 

(ACWI) Subcommittee on Ground Water (SOGW). If this effort moves forward, consistent, comparable nationwide data would become accessible through a web portal 

for federal, state, local government and private sector users. In these tight fiscal 

times, the proposed network would build on existing state and federal investments, 

maximizing their usefulness and leveraging current dollars to build toward systematic nationwide monitoring of the groundwater resource. 

Groundwater provides 40% of the nation’s drinking water supply. For a small investment, the nation can begin finally to put in place adequate monitoring of this 

irreplaceable resource. 

Thank you. 
52 

1The Wilderness Society was established 75 years ago to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. Our mission is to maintain the integrity of America’s wilderness and public lands and ensure that land management practices are sustainable and based 

on sound science. With more than half a million members and supporters nation-wide, TWS represents a diverse range of citizen support for wise stewardship of our network of wild natural 

areas. 2See reports generated in response to the SECURE Water ACT: http://www.usbr.gov/climate/ 

SECURE/docs/SECUREWaterReport.pdf and http://acwi.gov/Rpt.Congress3.18.11.pdf.) 3http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSElDOCUMENTSstelprdb5107789.pdf 

STATEMENT OF THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

Thank you Chairman Bingaman and Ranking Member Murkowski for this opportunity to address the issue of water and climate in New Mexico. 

The Wilderness Society1 shares your concern for maintaining the viability of community water supplies in the face of global warming. America’s public lands—some 

635 million acres of land and 150,000 square miles of protected waters—are a legacy 

we hold in trust for generations to come. Global warming poses an unprecedented 

threat to the nation’s iconic landscapes—our national parks, forests, wilderness 

areas, desert lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and wildlife refuges. At the same time, our country’s parks and other public lands offer one of our 

best hopes for sustaining the plants, animals, birds, clean water and air, and recreational opportunities that are important to our heritage. They store water and 

carbon and provide large core protected areas that will be essential in adapting to 

a changing climate. These lands also provide critical services for our communities, 

including filtering the air we breathe and the water we drink and rely on for food 

production. Protecting these natural places is more important now than ever. 

The Wilderness Society appreciates the leadership of this Committee in undertaking a review of water supplies in the West, both through understanding climate 

impacts on reclamation2 and data collection relevant to monitoring hydrologic conditions. To supplement these reports, we are submitting a set of case histories below 

so that the Committee may consider examples of water protection initiatives that 

have relied extensively on the maintenance of natural ecosystems. The health of our 

nation’s public lands—particularly its forests—are critical to maintaining the viability of thousands of communities across America. Just as a car won’t start if the battery is low, economic activity weakens and dies if our natural water systems—acting 

as a battery for sustainable water supplies from season to season—run dry. 

In fact, forests supply drinking water to more than 180 million people and over 

sixty million people rely on a national forests for their water.3 Climate change 

threatens both the health of our forests as well as the water resources they provide. 

Protecting forests today, and keeping them resilient in a warming world by investing in climate-smart conservation, is a cost-effective strategy to mitigate future climate impacts and ensure our wildlands and communities have the water they need 

in years to come. 

Restoring and protecting forests for their water resources is not a new concept. 

In fact, many of America’s forests were originally established for this exact reason— 

and we benefit today from this foresight. The case studies below highlight this legacy, and we hope inspire a renewed commitment to keeping our forests resilient as 

we face changing climates. 

CASE HISTORIES

1. The Tolt River Watershed is smaller area of land, but similar to the Cedar 

River Watershed in its contribution of fresh water to the Seattle area. The entire watershed is 63,800 acres, although only 8,400 acres is owned by the City 

of Seattle. This forestland is located at the foot of the breathtaking Cascade 

Mountains and produces up to 100 million gallons of clean drinking water per 

day. The City of Seattle recognized the importance of this watershed and traded 

Weyerhaeuser Timber Company for the land, which now belongs solely to the 

city. Today, the Tolt River Watershed supplies 30% of fresh drinking water to 

the 1.3 million people in the greater Seattle area. Earth Economics estimates 

that the entire watershed has a present value of between $5.6 and $20.9 billion 

at a 7% discount rate, using a 3.5% discount rate (used for renewable and self 

sustaining ecosystem services,) that number would be between $10.9 and $40.3 

billion. 

‘‘Tolt River Watershed.’’ Seattle.Gov: Seattle Public Utilities. Seattle Public Utilities, 

2011. Web. 30 Mar 2011. <http://www.seattle.gov/util/AboutlSPU/WaterlSystem/ 

WaterlSourcesl&lTreatment/ToltlRiverlWatershed/index.asp>. 
53 

Batker, David K. ‘‘Supplemental Ecological Services: Tolt River Watershed Asset 

Management Plan.’’ Earth Economics. Earth Economics, December 16, 2005. Web. 

31 Mar 2011. <http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/ 

Puget%20Sound%20and%20Watersheds/ 

ToltlRiverlEcologicallServicelStudy.pdf>. 

2. The Cedar River Watershed is 90,638 acres of forestland that has been regulated by the City of Seattle since 1899. The watershed continued to be logged 

until erosion, forest degradation and forest fires lead the City to take the first 

steps in protecting this forestland. An extensive watershed assessment was 

done, which resulted in the creation of more sustainable logging practices and 

the replanting of local species. Today, 17% of old growth remains in the Cedar 

River Watershed and this watershed currently provides clean drinking water to 

1.4 million people in the Seattle area. If the Cedar River Watershed was not 

there to filter the water being used by the city, the City of Seattle would have 

to pay over $250 million for a water filtration plant like other cities in the U.S. 

‘‘Cedar River Watershed.’’ Seattle.Gov: Seattle Public Utilities. Seattle Public Utilities, 2011. Web. 30 Mar 2011. <http://www.seattle.gov/util/AboutlSPU/ 

WaterlSystem/WaterlSourcesl&lTreatment/CedarlRiverlWatershed/ 

index.asp>. 

‘‘Flood Protection and Ecosystem Services in the Chehalis River Basin.’’ Earth Economics. Earth Economics, May 2010. Web. 1 Apr 2011. <http:// 

www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/Chehalis/ChehalislExecutivelSummary.pdf>. 

3. The Bull Run Watershed is within the larger Sandy River Watershed, in 

the Mt. Hood National Forest. The City of Portland successfully lobbied President Harrison in 1892 to make Bull Run a national forest Reserve. In recognition of the paramount importance of this watershed, the US Congress passed 

amendments to the 1977 Bull Run Act in 1996 that limited activities and increased protection in the Bull Run Watershed. Bull Run has is the primary 

source of drinking water for almost one-fourth of the population of Oregon, 

around 787,000 people. Bull Run watershed, along with the Mt. Hood National 

Forest, serves as emergency water sources during summer droughts. 

‘‘The Bull Run Watershed.’’ City of Portland: Portland Water Bureau. Portland 

Water Bureau, 2011. Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://www.portlandonline.com/water/ 

index.cfm?c=29784>. 

Hopper, Kim, and Caryn Ernst. ‘‘Source Protection Handbook: Using Land Conservation to Protect Drinking Water Supplies.’’ Trust for Public Land. (2005): Print. 

4. The Upper Neuse River basin in North Carolina is a huge watershed in 

the central part of the state. The basin covers 770 square miles and is managed 

by multiple agencies, all of which have different management objectives ranging 

from water quality monitoring and conservation to wastewater treatment and 

storm water management. The Upper Neuse River Basin Association is a regional collective of local governments who have jurisdiction in different regions 

of the Upper Neuse. The association is an attempt to aid cooperative management between agencies. The whole basin supplies more than .5 million people 

in North Carolina with fresh drinking water. 

Terziotti, Silvia. ‘‘The Upper Neuse Watershed Evaluation Tool.’’ USGS. USGS, 

2006. Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://nc.water.usgs.gov/reports/abstracts/ 

Ter06Upplfull.html>. 

NOTE: for the Snohomish and Nisqually—-both estimates are low, because these are 

estimated values of natural systems, they technically should be treated differently 

than other economic assets and so their value over, say, 100 years is actually huge 

because they would receive 0% discount rates. 

5. The Snohomish Basin provides multiple ecosystem services to Western 

Washington including providing fresh water, buffering against flooding, supporting fisheries and agriculture, and providing waste treatment. These combined services are estimated to be providing between $383.1 million-$5.2 billion 

every year. These ecosystem services have a present value of between $13.2 billion and $180.1 billion, (using a 2.7% discount rate). If we fail to protect this 

important watershed and allow natural systems in the Snohomish to become degraded, we could face huge economic value losses. 

Batker, David, Rowan Schmidt, Jennifer Harrison-Cox, and Briana Lovell. ‘‘The 

Whole Economy of the Snohomish Basin.’’ Earth Economics. Earth Economics, No-
54 

vember, 2010. Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/ 

Reports/Snohomish/EarthlEconomicslSnohomishlBasinlReportlLQ.pdf>. 

6. The Nisqually Watershed links the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the Puget 

Sound and crosses multiple municipalities, but it is unique in that it’s headwaters are in a National Park and its delta is in a National Wildlife Refuge. 

In 1985, the Washington State Department of Ecology created a management 

plan and council for the protection of the watershed. The Nisqually River Task 

Force was created and includes representatives from federal, state, and local 

governments, agencies, and organizations as well as members of the Nisqually 

Indian Tribe. Earth Economics did an assessment of the economic benefits that 

this watershed provides people living in the Pierce County area and have estimated that the value of just 12 of the 23 ecosystem services that this watershed 

offers is between $287,600,000 and $4,165,990,000 in yearly benefits. If the watershed was viewed as an economic asset, its asset value would be between $9.5 

billion and $138 billion. 

Batker, David, Isabel de la Torre, Maya Kocian, and Briana Lovell. ‘‘The Natural 

Economy of the Nisqually Watershed.’’ Earth Economics. Earth Economics, 2009. 

Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/NaturallEconomyloflNisquallylWatershedl7l2009.pdf>. 

‘‘The Nisqually Watershed Stewardship Plan.’’ Nisqually River Council. Nisqually 

River Council, 2009. Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://nisquallyriver.org/who-we-are/thenisqually-river-management-plan/>. 

‘‘Nisqually Land Trust Facts.’’ Nisqually Land Trust. Nisqually Land Trust, 2006. 

Web. 31 Mar 2011. <http://www.nisquallylandtrust.org/land.php>. μ 

7. Puget Sound is in the western part of the state of Washington and is made 

up of interconnected estuarine systems and waterways. The basin is home to 

4.3 million people and one of the largest cities on the West Coast, Seattle. The 

basin provides drinking water, recreation, fish , flood and storm protection, and 

erosion control, just to name a few. As a whole, the ecosystem services within 

the basin provide between $7.4 and $61.7 billion in benefits to human communities every year. If viewed as an economic asset, the basin is worth at least 

between $243 billion and $2.1 trillion. 

Batker, David, Paula Sweeden, Robert Costanza, Isabel de la Torre, and Roelof 

Boumans. ‘‘A New View of the Puget Sound Economy .’’ Earth Economics. Earth Economics, n.d. Web. 1 Apr 2011. http://www.eartheconomics.org/FileLibrary/file/Reports/AlNewlViewloflthelPugetlSoundlEconomy.pdf 

8. The Skokomish River is in the Southeast part of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula and is one of the US Forest Service’s focus points in terms of restoring 

damaged watersheds. The Skokomish watershed was overcut in the early 1950’s 

and continued until the 1980’s. By this point, 60% of the Skokomish had been 

clearcut and hundreds of miles of logging roads had been built, causing erosion. 

Sediment and gravel were deposited in the River and created buildup, which 

lead to flooding in Skokomish Tribeland. Since the 1990’s, the Forest Service 

has been working on restoring the watershed and decommissioning old logging 

roads. In 2006 by the Wilderness Society, the Olympic Forest Coalition and others organized the Skokomish Watershed Action Team (SWAT) to help restore 

the watershed. The Skokomish watershed is economically valuable because it is 

the main source of fresh water for the Hood Canal in Puget Sound. 

Anderson, Mike. ‘‘Washington’s Skokomish Watershed: Exemplar of the Legacy 

Roads and Trails Initiative.’’ Wilderness CPR. Wildlands CPR, 2010. Web. 13 Apr 

2011. <http://www.scribd.com/full/39748952?accesslkey=key2a553fp1puuc85pry87u>. 

9. The Upper Little Tallapoosa Watershed is a 95 square mile area about an 

hour west of Atlanta. This land has historically been used for traditional farming and forestry, but over the past few decades it has begun to be developed 

into large scale residential communities and commercial buildings. This watershed provides drinking water for 30,000 people, mostly in Carrollton and in 

Carol Country, Georgia. In 1987, there was an outbreak of Cryptosporidum, an 

intestinal parasite that made residents in Carol County very sick and resulted 

in an increased awareness of water quality in the region. In 2003, the citizens 

of Carroll County voted to raise sales taxes to generate almost $85 million over 

five years to fund quality of life projects, $19 million went toward land conservation to protect drinking water. 
55 

‘‘Source Water Stewardship: Upper Little Tallapoosa River, Georgia.’’ The Trust for 

Public Land. The Trust for Public Land, 2003. Web. 12 Apr 2011. <http:// 

www.tpl.org/contentldocuments/TallapoosaGAlConVisCaseStudy.pdf>. 

10. Two primary watersheds are responsible for providing fresh, clean water 

for the Boston area: the Wachusett Reservoir and the Quabbin Reservoir. The 

Wachusett Reservoir can be dated back to the late 19th century, when Boston 

was experiencing a period of rapid growth and was beginning to require large 

quantities of water not just for drinking, but also for plumbing. City planners 

decided that an additional water source was needed, and in 1897 the Wachusett 

dam was built on the Nashua River. Construction was finished in 1905, and the 

reservoir started to be regularly used in 1908. The Quabbin Reservoir was constructed a few years later, in 1926. The Division of Water Supply Protection and 

the Department of Conservation and Recreation oversee management of these 

two watersheds. Because they are both unfiltered supplies they rely on forest 

bio-filtration to maintain drinking water standards, so the Division also manages 100,000 acres of forests surrounding the watersheds. The Wachusett and 

Quabbin Reservoirs provide drinking water for almost 2.2 million people and 

5,500 city industrial users and are essential water sources for the city of Boston. 

‘‘The Water System.’’ Water Resources Authority. State of Massachusetts, April 

2011. Web. 19 Apr 2011. <http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/04water/html/wat.htm>. 

‘‘Office of Water Management.’’ Department of Conservation and Recreation. State 

of Massachusetts, 2011. Web. 19 Apr 2011. <http://www.mass.gov/dcr/watersupply/ 

watershed/water.htm>. 

11. The Kenai Watershed is about 1.4 million acres and the majority of the 

water in this watershed is the result of glacier melt, which gives the River a 

light turquoise color. The Kenai Watershed is a drastically important watershed 

to fish species and has a very high economic value. The local Alaskan commercial salmon fishing industry generates between $75 and $175 million every 

year, Over 40% of this number can be attributed to the Kenai River. The Kenai 

River Watershed is owned by different parties. The lower 50 miles of the Watershed are owned by private entities and are already being developed. This development affects water quality and fish livelihood. The headwaters of the watershed are in the Chugach National Forest. 

‘‘Living and Playing in the Kenai River Watershed.’’ Kenai Watershed Forum. Kenai 

Watershed Forum, n.d. Web. 22 Apr 2011. <http://web.acsalaska.net/ 

?kenaiwatershed.forum/LivinglandlPlayinglKRW.pdf>. 

The Wilderness Society thanks the Committee for its attention to the critical connections between water, climate and community health. It is our hope that the case 

histories set forth in this testimony will improve public understanding of successful, 

cost effective strategies for water management and can give direction to adaptation 

strategies needed to meet the challenge of climate change in the years ahead. 

STATEMENT OF MEREDITH R. MACHEN, PRESIDENT, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, 

SANTA FE COUNTY

WATER (adopted 2010) 

The League of Women Voters of New Mexico believes that consumptive use of 

water in New Mexico must be in balance with renewable supply. Healthy ecosystems naturally perform services that benefit both people and nature, such as 

cleaning water, reducing floods, and creating fish and wildlife habitat. To secure the 

benefits of functioning ecosystems and to conserve New Mexico’s biodiversity, sufficient water must be budgeted for environmental flows. The creation and adherence 

to comprehensive water budgets is essential to preserve public lands, water, and 

open space, and to ensure that there will be enough water for future generations 

of New Mexicans. The state, water regions, and local governments must 

1. monitor and measure all water resources and uses, and publish this information; 

2. use a public process to create and follow water budgets; 

3. educate citizens on their responsibilities as well as their rights; 

4. promote strategies to reduce demand; 

5. minimize water contamination in order to promote the health and safety 

of all life; 

6. preserve and restore rivers and watersheds. 
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Conservation of water and efficiency of use must be encouraged to enable New 

Mexico to meet its interstate compact obligations, to help balance use with supply, 

to relieve stress on the physical system, and to reduce net depletion. 

Regional Water Planning 

The League supports continued funding for regional planning. Using a public 

process, regional planning should 

1. gather and publish data on supply and demand, and provide regular updates; 

2. create a balanced water budget; 

3. identify critical and emerging issues. 

Local land use plans should be required to be consistent with applicable regional 

water plans. 

The public welfare statements of a regional water plan should be considered by 

the State Engineer when reviewing applications for transfer of water rights. 

Land Use and Water 

Land use and development must be tied to water availability. To encourage this: 

1. Compliance with water availability determinations by the Office of the 

State Engineer (OSE) under the Subdivision Act should be mandatory. 

2. Review of subdivision applications pursuant to the Subdivision Act should 

be expanded to encompass all divisions of land. 

3. Long-term cumulative impacts as well as short-term water requirements of 

development should be taken into consideration by the local permitting authority. 

4. The applicant must be required to acquire water rights before development 

can proceed. 

5. The impact of any transfer of water rights on the area of origin must be 

assessed. 

6. The permitting authority should evaluate the impact of proposed developments on ‘‘public welfare’’ as defined by the applicable regional water plan and 

be able to demonstrate that the proposed development is consistent with the 

plan. 

7. New residential and commercial developments should be water-efficient. 

8. Growth should not be permitted where water is not available. 

Local zoning and subdivision statutes should be updated. State and local governments should collaborate in addressing the problem of antiquated subdivisions in 

order to facilitate planning and to make the water budget process meaningful. 

Role of Government 

State government and the legal process must work to reconcile the many claims 

on New Mexico water in a manner that is open and as fair as possible. Among other 

considerations: 

1. Communal as well as private interests must be respected in applying water 

law; 

2. Maintenance of in-stream flow and general ecological health must be recognized as a ‘‘beneficial use’’ of water. 

The Office of the State Engineer should be adequately funded to execute its functions. In addition: 

1. The OSE must be given more authority to regulate domestic well permits. 

Improved regulation and monitoring of domestic wells and septic systems is essential to protect groundwater supplies and should be adequately funded. 

2. The effort to gather data must be coordinated and adequately funded by 

the state, which should establish consistent protocols, accounting methods, and 

terminology. 

3. The state should also help implement the regional water plans and provide 

coordination among planning activities at the different levels of government and 

across river basins. 

Government should support research on water-related issues including 

1. methods to manage and store water that lose less to evaporation, 

2. best agricultural practices that optimize the use of water for both farmers 

and downstream users, while sustaining the natural flow; 

3. urban systems that maximize water re-use; 

4. health of the state’s rivers and watersheds. 
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Governments at every level must educate citizens by developing and disseminating data about water resources. Local governments must promulgate and enforce 

regulations promoting conservation, including positive incentives and rate structures. 

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