by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
As appearing in the Daily Sentinel

Old timers who manage ditches, head gates and canals often mention the “head of water.” It refers, somewhat imprecisely, to an amount of water needed to force its movement over various distances. A bigger hayfield requires a bigger “head of water” to irrigate it all the way to the bottom, and a bigger turbine at a hydroelectric dam requires a bigger “head of water” to spin it.

It’s interesting that the same root evolved into the phrase “coming to a head.” A dictionary of idioms defines the phrase as “reaching a point of intensity at which action must be taken.” As in, “things at the office finally came to a head, and he had to be fired.”

Three of my last four columns were about Colorado River issues, especially the dramatic drop in the water level at Lake Powell. We’ve discussed the Interstate Compacts, the government’s complicity in draining the lake, and a different approach Colorado and the Upper Basin should take. Why all the sudden focus on such a perennial issue? Because generational disputes over the river’s management are finally coming to a head. And the stakes could not be higher for Colorado.

Here is the critical situation. The Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation has delivered an ultimatum to the seven states that depend on the Colorado River, demanding they slash use of their own water — by millions of acre feet — or else. The amount of the total reduction would virtually equal Colorado’s entire share, and the states were given 60 days to come up with a plan. Otherwise, the Bureau threatens to thrust aside the Interstate Compact, ignore a century of western water law, and assume complete control of the allocation of water among the states.