Salt Lake City will be the site of one of eight water crisis conferences that the Interior Department is holding throughout the West this summer.
The Utah meeting will be July 16, said John W. Keys III, commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Expected participants include representatives of water districts, the state, federal agencies, Indian tribes, the Utah congressional delegation, environmental groups, sport fisheries and the media.
Other meetings are scheduled for Denver, June 6; Phoenix, July 8; Las Vegas, July 9; Sacramento, July 10; Boise, July 17; Billings, Mont., July 29; Albuquerque, Aug. 12; and Austin, Texas, Aug. 14.
"The main goal of these regional consulting conferences is to engage the public in Water 2025," said Keys. Water 2025 is a program that seeks to find ways to head off water supply crises.
Water shortages in the Klamath River region of Oregon were so severe in the summer of 2001 that the Interior Department was caught in the middle of clashes over needs for irrigation water and for water to protect endangered species. That conflict sparked the round of consultations going on this year, according to the department.
When Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced the 2025 initiative in early May, the department released a map showing areas of the country where battles over water were likely in the next quarter-century. The Wasatch Front was among 10 areas shown in red, meaning the potential for conflict over water is considered highly likely.
Bennett W. Raley, assistant secretary of the Interior Department for water and science, said Norton wants to make Water 2025 "a secretarial priority." He and Keys spoke this week during a telephone news conference.
Keys sounded less alarmed about water shortages in Utah than the map seemed to indicate.
"The current administration there in Utah, and the people working in water there, have a good handle on what's going on," he said in response to a Deseret News question.
The paper also asked him whether he believes the Central Utah Project will need to be expanded. Keys, a Utahn, began working with the CUP in 1964.
Managers of the Central Utah Project and earlier water projects "are working very hard with local communities" on supplying water, he said Wednesday, " . . . so I don't see a shortfall."
Main purpose of the conference is to take a look at needs that may arise in the next 25 years. "Whether Central Utah (Project) needs expanding or not, we don't know right now," he said.
His home is in Utah, he added. People in arid states "made a choice to live there," and the conference will examine ways to use existing water supplies to meet needs. Conservation, improved efficiency and new technology may be ways to stretch water supplies, according to Keys.
Speaking of the role of the federal government in water developments, he said, "Yes . . . we were there to make the desert bloom, yes, we're there to conserve that water, make it available to other uses, and at the same time, maintain that economy that we've all come to depend on."
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