It’s easy to take for granted the accounting innovations in the Colorado River governance regime’s 2007 guidelines, which have governed river management and the upstream-downstream relationships between the upper and lower basins. “Intentionally Created Surplus” (ICS) is now part of the lexicon, and the idea behind it shows enough promise that it’s at the heart of the current negotiations over the post-’07 guidelines management of the river.

But we need to be careful about the lessons that we learn, and the details of how we implement the successor to ICS. How should the successor to ICS related to action levels for reservoir management? How do we ensure that water in ICS-like accounting pools is really conserved water, part of a sincere effort to reduce basin consumptive use?

Those questions are at the heart of the argument in Floating Pools & Grand Bargains, a new white paper by Kathryn Sorensen from Arizona State University and a group of colleagues, including Eric Kuhn:

While the concept of creating storage in Lakes Powell and Mead is not new, a Floating Pool proposal inherently creates trade-offs between existing and future uses that varies from the traditional shortage sharing priorities found in the Law of the River. We are, however, facing challenges not foreseen by the drafters of the Law. Without some new and imaginative thinking, the alternative may be to turn the future of the river over to the nine justices of the United States Supreme Court. That alternative is the least likely to produce a result which allows for the flexible management of a changing river system and potentially sets up the parties for continuing legal challenges. Cooperation among Colorado River water users now is essential to creating working relationships that canmanage changing river conditions. The viability of the economy in the West is at stake.

Highly recommended.