Transcript

Lynn Tominaga/John Keys: Does the Bureau have a policy on conjunctive management?

Tominaga: Conjuctive management of surface and ground water is very important in all the western states, especially as the groundwater and the surface water are hydrologically connected. The Bureau of Reclamation plays a big role because they usually either own the facilities for delivery or have large storage facilities that would enhance conjuctive management. What's the policy of the Bureau or does the Bureau have a policy on conjuctive management?

Keys: Well, do we have a policy on conjuctive management? No, not specifically, but our projects are operated so that people can work with them to do that. In other words, if we need to deliver water to a recharge area, certainly our facilities can be made available to do that. If someone has some of their allocation of water in our facility and they want to move it, we certainly will help them do that. I think at times there has been a reluctance to show that tie between the groundwater and the surface water resources of an area, and at times we use recharges as crutch to ignore that connection. That's been some of the problems we've been trying to deal with. But certainly, to help make it happen so that it is conjuctive use, our facilities are there. There hve been several challenges in court as to how you pay for use of the facilities, but basically what the court said is that all the facilities can be used; people just have to pay their fair share of the operation maintenance cost to do that and certainly, if there is a policy, that's it.

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