John McCain recently sent out a clear signal of his support for efforts to divert water from Colorado to his home state of Arizona. This was a revolutionary statement. It is also a clear political windfall for Obama.
The water resource story in the western states is direct and easily understood. The Obama campaign staff must use the Colorado media to make certain that over the next two months voters are constantly reminded of the serious harm McCain aims to bring to the state of Colorado regarding its water needs.
Here are the details:
In a recent telephone interview with the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper in Colorado, John McCain advocated the renegotiation of the Colorado River Compact. This was a stunning proposal as the 86-year-old agreement has been consistently viewed as a sacred treaty between seven states. The Compact governs the allocation of the indispensable waters from the vital Colorado River, which generates billions of gallons of water from melted snow and rainfall in the Rocky Mountains and other mountain ranges.
In this interview McCain declared that because of major growth in some of the states, particularly Arizona and California, the governors should consider adjusting the agreement.
An angry reaction ensued. Colorado Senator Ken Salazar said the Compact was sacrosanct. He said, "Opening up the Colorado River Compact is absolutely wrong and would only happen over my dead body." The McCain position is universally opposed by voters in Colorado, a battleground state with nine electoral votes.
In the western states, any threat to reshuffle the deck and redistribute the region’s most precious resource always meets with massive resistance. In calling for a renegotiation of the treaty, John McCain may have stepped into a political hornet’s nest that will severely damage his ability to hold votes in the state of Colorado.
On November 24, 1922, the governors of seven states, meeting at the state capitol building in Santa Fe, New Mexico, agreed to a formula to allocate the water from the Colorado River. Under the agreement, at least 7.5 million acre-feet of water was required to be released downstream to the states of California, Arizona, and Nevada. (An acre-foot of water is the amount that would be required to submerge one acre of land with a foot of water. It is roughly equivalent to 326,000 gallons.)
Under the 1922 Compact, the upstream states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico are required to maintain a flow to downstream states of at least 7.5 million acre-feet each year. The agreement assures that Southern California and the Phoenix metropolitan areas will have enough water to sustain their expected growth. The residual waters of the river are reserved for the state of Colorado and for the other three upstream states.
Confronted by severe criticism over his proposal to renegotiate the water issue, McCain later hedged his position. He said: "I would never advocate any course of action that would damage the state of Colorado’s rights over the water." But his position on renegotiation was firm. He restated his support for "discussions as how we best use a scarcer and scarcer resource in the West."
Let’s assume that McCain is successful in his effort to renegotiate the Colorado River Compact. One then asks, what would the revision entail? Only the most naive person would conclude that McCain is calling for an adjustment that would allocate less water to the fastest-growing states of Arizona and California. It is certain that he is contemplating ways to get more water to these states. And if this is the case, then there will be less water for the urgent needs of the upstream states of Colorado and New Mexico.
The most interesting political consequence of the Compact issue is that these two water-rich upstream states — Colorado and New Mexico — where McCain is likely to lose votes over the water issue, are both important battleground states in the fall election.
As stated earlier, in the West, water is king. Barack Obama needs to demonstrate to Colorado voters the severe harm a McCain presidency will bring to the state of Colorado over this issue. To be sure, the Colorado River Compact is an agreement between states. But John McCain, if elected president, could use the huge powers of his office to pressure state governors to agree to a greater flow of water downstream to Arizona, therefore reducing the amount of water available for the people of Colorado.
The water allocation issue is a matter of universal concern to Colorado voters. The threat to the people of the state could provide enough votes for Obama to easily swing the nine electoral votes of Colorado into the Democratic column.