Andrea Joy Campbell: “I worked with the Senator from Idaho on a good number of water bills for a number of years. Maybe I should correct him…”

“I worked with the Senator from Idaho on a good number of water bills for a number of years. Maybe I should correct him because we have one more water project to build, and that is what he and I have been working on in Colorado for the last two decades. But something came to my mind as I have been listening to the debate, and I would like to ask the Senator a question, since he is the only one on the floor. Most of the western States have several problems including over appropriation, which means more people own the water than there is water. That is why we have been fighting back and forth. One of the things common to the West but not common to the East is called water compacts. We have them between counties sharing scarce water, we have them between States. Colorado happens to be an upper basin State, as it is called; California, a lower basin State; and we share the water that goes down the Colorado River. We also share the water, under a contractual agreement, that goes down the Rio Grande that starts in Colorado, that goes to Texas. In addition to interstate compacts, we have international compacts because we have a compact with Mexico to provide a certain amount of water from both of those rivers to that nation. Most of the water that is in ranching now recharges back to the ground. It goes back either through runoff irrigation, which goes back to the river, or if it is sprinkled, it usually recharges the aquifer to some degree.”