By Brittany K. Johnson & Mekha Pereira.
On the Colorado River, as hydrology becomes drier and operations become more challenging, a lawyer and a hydrologist take turns addressing what it really means to comply with the Lee Ferry delivery obligation in the Colorado River Compact. There are legal components (and interpretations) of what must be delivered at Lee Ferry, and each physical component has interpretation and nuance to it as well. Based on current conditions and operational guidelines, the authors consider a wide range of plausible variations on what Compact compliance could mean and how it could be quantified.