WSP08807

• File Number: 8220.106
• Description: Animas-La Plata
• State: CO
• Basin: San Juan/Dolores
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 10/26/1990
• Author: Judith Jacobsen
• Title: The Navajo Indian Irrigation Project and Quantification of Navajo Winters Rights
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

24

Mexico.6S The 1961 House Report on NllP states straightforwardly, but succinctly,
why. The section's purpose was:

to allay tbe concern of Colorado that under certain doctrines, particularly those
pertaining to irrigation of Indian lands, tbe allocations of water to that State
under interstate compacts may be jeopardized. It [section U(a)] would preclude
the United States from furnishing any water through the project works other
than water allocated to the States of New Mexico or Arizona by the Upper
Colorado River Basin compact.S6

,

;

Colorado feared that "various federal theories," meaning the Winters doctrine, would

allow New Mexico, under the guise of meeting Indian water claims, to draw more

water from the San Juan River than the interstate compacts allow. If New Mexico

were to exceed its compact allocation, Colorado feared that it would be called on to

release to the lower basin--under the 1922 Compact--water tbat it wished to use for

its reclamation project in the area, the Animas-La Plata Project.51

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6SIjouse Hearinl: 1960. ~ note 41 at 96, 110 (statement of S.E. Reynolds, State
Engineer, New Mexico.)

S6H.R. Rep. No. 685, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. 13 (1961), reprinted in 1962 U.S. Code
Congo & Admin. News 1681, 1693. Under federal reclamation law, the federal
government, in the person of the Secretary of Interior, actually allocates federal project
water, by contract. Thus the mention of the United States furnishing water in the House
Report.

51For concern over supply for the Animas-La Plata Project, see. e.~., Senate Hearing
.1lli. ~ note 17 at 10; House Hearin~ 1960. ~ note 41 at 96-121 and 160-169;
and House Hearioll 1961. ~ note 14 at 117-118, 131-132; 141-143; 175.179; 190-193;
and 202-206. For a description of the Animas-La Plata Project, ~ Water and Power
Resources Service, Department of Interior, Project Data 1981 1-4 (1981).

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