1. Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Lower Colorado River Protection Act”.
Lower Colorado River Protection Act
A BILL
To provide for the protection of the quality of water in the Lower Colorado River and the development and implementation of a comprehensive plan for the prevention and elimination of pollution in the Lower Colorado River and the maintenance of a healthy Lower Colorado River ecosystem.
2. Table of contents
The table of contents of this Act is as follows:
3. Findings
The Congress finds the following:
Safe supplies of water are fundamental to the health, economy, security, and ecology of the United States.
Research, development, and implementation of means and methods to protect the quality of the water resources of the United States will help ensure the continued existence of safe water to support—
increasing populations;
economic growth;
irrigated agriculture and a safe food supply; and
the protection of aquatic ecosystems.
The Colorado River is a multifaceted resource of the United States because—
the Colorado River is a natural wonder, a national treasure, and the lifeblood of the Southwest as it provides drinking water for more than 25,000,000 people and irrigates 1,800,000 acres of land, watering 15 percent of United States crops and over 80 percent of winter vegetables consumed in the United States;
the Colorado River is a major water recreation destination for boaters, fishermen, skiers, swimmers, hikers, and others with the Grand Canyon receiving approximately 4,500,000 visitors per year, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area receiving approximately 2,000,000 visitors per year, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area receiving approximately 8,000,000 visitors per year; and
the Colorado River and its tributaries form a unique habitat that supports many rare and unusual species, including 36 native fish species (not including 2 that have already gone extinct), of which 25 species are found only in the Colorado River and its tributaries, 11 species are classified as endangered, 4 species are classified as threatened, and 5 species are classified as sensitive.
The Colorado River is endangered because—
the habitat along the Colorado River has been altered by dams, diversions, habitat loss and degradation, chemical pollution, and nonnative plant and animal species (including 62 nonnative species of fish), such that it is no longer the warm, silt-laden, sometimes turbulent, and ecologically balanced home to which native species are adapted, which has reduced the populations and ranges of many native species;
male fish in Las Vegas Bay of Lake Mead have relatively high levels of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), low levels of sex hormones, and shrunken testes associated with exposure to EDCs in effluent discharged into Las Vegas Wash and making its way into the lake, and this effluent will soon be directly discharged into Lake Mead instead of Las Vegas Wash;
the dangers of increasing levels of EDCs are exemplified by the condition of the San Francisco Bay Estuary, the source of drinking water for 25,000,000 Californians, where fish populations are crashing and young fish are born with brain, liver, and other deformities associated with high levels of environmental exposure to EDCs, which are making their way into people as evidenced by levels of the fire retardant polybrominated diphenyl ether reaching up to 100 times normal concentrations in the breast milk of Bay Area women;
nitrate pollution from degrading septic tanks presents a current and continuing threat to the health of the Lower Colorado River and the ecosystems and the health of the people that depend on it;
nitrate pollution also threatens the beneficial use of recreation along the Lower Colorado River because excess nitrates cause algal blooms, which die and decompose, deoxygenating the water and killing large numbers of fish;
run-off and return flows from agricultural lands into the Lower Colorado River and adjacent aquifers and waterways are rich in nitrates and sediment and high in salinity;
a number of chemicals in addition to nitrates are current or emerging threats to the Lower Colorado River, including uranium and other uranium mining by-products, selenium, hexavalent chromium, perchlorate, mercury, EDCs, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products;
known chemical and radioactive threats to the river include a 100-foot high, 130 acre, 10.5 million ton pile of uranium mill tailings located 750 feet from the river near Moab, Utah, and being remediated by the Department of Energy;
thousands of new mining claims, mostly for uranium, on Federal lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon are an emerging threat to the Colorado River;
known chemical threats to the river include 2 plumes of perchlorate rocket fuel near Henderson, Nevada, now being voluntarily remediated by the land owners, but previously making its way into lettuce grown over 200 miles away near Yuma, Arizona;
known chemical threats to the river include 2 plumes of hexavalent chromium near Topock, California, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona, being voluntarily remediated by the land owners;
quagga mussels, tamarisk, and other invasive species are disrupting ecosystems and threatening infrastructure and water quality in the Lower Colorado River; and
other types of contaminants and sources of pollution are a present danger to the Lower Colorado River, including pathogens, stormwater run-off, and salinity.
Demands on and needs of the Colorado River that are increasing stresses on the ecosystems and water resources of the Lower Colorado River are increasing because—
the population of California is projected to increase from 39,000,000 in 2010 to almost 60,000,000 in 2050, and the population of Arizona is projected to increase from 7,000,000 in 2010 to almost 13,000,000 in 2050;
population along the Lower Colorado River is expected to grow from its current 290,000 to 480,000 by 2025;
more than $2 billion is needed by 2025 to build the wastewater treatment plants necessary to ameliorate the danger to the Lower Colorado River from septic tanks; and
according to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the average annual temperature will increase by over 6 degrees Fahrenheit and annual run-off will decrease by 20 percent or more over much of the Lower Colorado River Basin by the end of the century.
4. Declaration of goals
The goals of this Act are as follows:
To restore and maintain the ecosystems and the chemical, biological, and physical integrity of the waters of the Lower Colorado River to attain water quality that—
provides for the protection and propagation of plants, fish, shellfish, wildlife, and a balanced population of natural, safe microorganisms;
provides for recreation in and on the water; and
protects the health of the millions of citizens of the United States who drink the water of the Lower Colorado River and eat the produce grown with water withdrawn from the Lower Colorado River.
To reduce the discharge of toxic pollutants into the Lower Colorado River to below toxic amounts and to remediate existing sources of toxic pollutants.
To develop and implement programs in an expeditious manner for the control of nonpoint sources of pollution to enable the goals of this Act to be met through the control of both point and nonpoint sources of pollution.
To complete research and development based on science and engineering to enable the goals of this Act to be met.
To empower the Environmental Protection Agency to take the lead in the effort to meet these goals, working with other Federal agencies and State and local authorities.
5. Definitions
For the purposes of this Act, the following definitions apply:
Administrator— The term Administrator means the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Agency— The term Agency means the Environmental Protection Agency.
CRRSCo— The term CRRSCo means the Colorado River Regional Sewer Coalition, an Arizona nonprofit corporation whose members are cities, towns, counties, Indian tribes, and political subdivisions in the Lower Colorado River Basin which have the financial and management responsibilities for the provision of wastewater services within their jurisdictions.
Federal agencies— The term Federal agencies includes the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior (including the Bureau of Reclamation, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the United States Geological Survey), the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Commerce (including the National Marine Fisheries Service), the Department of Agriculture (including the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Forest Service), and the Western Area Power Administration.
Federally recognized Indian tribes— The term federally recognized Indian tribes means—
the Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation, Arizona and California;
the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation, California;
the Fort Mohave Indian Tribe of Arizona, California, and Nevada;
the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation; and
the Cocopah Tribe of Arizona.
Lower Colorado River— The term Lower Colorado River means that portion of the Colorado River downstream from Lees Ferry, as defined in the Colorado River Compact of 1922, and within the United States.
Lower Colorado River Basin— The term Lower Colorado River Basin means the geographic areas in the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada that are hydrologically connected to the mainstem of the Lower Colorado River.
Management Conference— The term Management Conference means the Lower Colorado River Management Conference established in section 101.
Plan— The term Plan means the Lower Colorado River Pollution Elimination and Ecosystem Restoration Plan described in section 104;
Program— The term Program means the Lower Colorado River Protection Program established in section 102.
Qualified Project— The term qualified project means a project to be carried out in the Lower Colorado River Basin that—
monitors or evaluates the release or discharge of pollutants in the Lower Colorado River Basin; or
prevents, reduces, or eliminates pollution in the Lower Colorado River or restores or maintains the ecosystem health of the Lower Colorado River in accordance with the Plan; and
does not include the purchase of water for the purpose of flow regulation in the Lower Colorado River or its tributaries.