In addition to these these proposed water withdrawals, states are also using their appropriation systems to reserve water for certain uses. One such case is in Montana, where the state has reserved 5.5 million acre-feet/year of flow in the Yellowstone River to protect fisheries. This type of reservation is being increasingly considered by states, especially in the protection of instream flows. While there might be certain limitations to these reservations, including that they are subordinate to prior appropriations, subsequent water appropriations or uses might be limited in amount and time because of these reservations. However, the water would be available for use downstream. - Out-of-Basin Use. The other category of water use in this paper are those proposed projects which would withdraw water from the Missouri River Basin for use outside the basin. Each of these projects is briefly described in Table 3 and its location shown in the center illustration. Most of these projects are proposed to use Missouri Basin water for energy production either for moving coal by slurry pipeline or for oil shale development. However, the non-energy uses are the largest proposed uses. Up to 4.3 million acre-feet annually could be used for agricultural and industrial purposes by the High Plains Diversion proposal and 871,000 acre-feet annually could be used for agricultural needs in North Dakota within the Garrison Diversion Unit. Except for the several thousand acre-feet of water which might be available for South Dakota communities along the ETSI pipeline and some water from the Garrison Diversion Unit, all of the water withdrawn for these projects is consumed. |