First it was manipulation of California’s electricity, now it’s manipulation of California’s water. Water officials have shut off three of eight massive pumps on Lake Havasu that transfer water from the Colorado River to California after the federal government called for a suspension of the state’s use of surplus water from the Rocky Mountains. Is California just using water stupidly? Probably, but there’s Republican political fingerprints all over this…
Interior Secretary (and ex-Colorado Attorney General) Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary Bennett Raley, a Denver water lawyer before joining the Bush administration, are, in the words of the Denver Post, “directing the most punitive measures in the history of Colorado River politics.” After California water agencies failed to meet a December 31 deadline to reach an agreement to reduce its withdrawals from the Colorado River, Norton and Raley ordered an immediate reduction of California’s withdrawals from the river. California had been overdrawing the river by over 800,000 acre feet a year, or enough water to serve 1.4 million people — although much of the overdrawn water was being used to grow fruits and vegetables in the Mohave Desert.
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From up here, the California water cutoff looks like pure politics. Cutting off California’s irrigators will undoubtedly help Bush in Colorado and the other Colorado River Compact states (AZ, NV, NM, UT and WY). While the electoral votes of these states combined do not equal California’s, the thinking could be that California is a lost cause and anything Bush can do to hold the mountain states (and pick up New Mexico) is worth doing. And if Gale Norton ever decides to run for state office again, you can bet she will be trumpeting how she stood up for Colorado’s water rights when she was in Washington during the great drought of the early 2000s.