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000733 The Compact: As the 20th century dawned, the vast domain of the Colorado River lay almost entirely untouched. Though there had been a few early filings for diver- sion and a "grand ditch" conveying water some 16 miles across the Continental. Divide into eastern . Colorado in the late 1800s, California's Imperial Valley was among the first areas to . tap the river's true potential. In early 1901, the 60-mile- long Alamo Canal, devel- oped by private concerns, was completed to deliver Colorado River water for irrigation, and a wasteland was transformed. But the Imperial Valley did not move ahead without prob- lems. About 50 miles of the canal coursed through Mexico, leaving the valley farmers at the mercy of a foreign government. And in 1905, the river, raging with floods, eroded the opening to the canal, roared through and created the Salton Sea before the river was pushed back into its normal channel. With the constant threat of flood looming along the lower Colorado, demands grew for some sort of per- manent flood control work - a storage reservoir and dam on the river. And Imperial Valley farmers called for a canal totally within the United States, free of Mexican interfer- ence. By 1919, Imperial I Irrigation District had won the support of the federal Bureau of Reclamation. A bureau engineering board recommended favorably on the canal and added the government "should undertake the early con- struction of a storage reser- voir on the drainage basin of the Colorado." . While this report was greeted with enthusiasm by people along the river's lower stretches, it was viewed with alarm by those in upperreaches. Water law in, most western states was based on the simple rule that whoever first used water had the first claim or right to tl1at water, and in 1921, this so-called "first in time, first in right" rule had been extended across state boundaries by a U.S. .' . . Supreme Court decision. A storage reservoir would mean greater water-use and . Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming feared that the faster-grow- ing California and Arizona, and perhaps even Nevada, would establish prior rights to large amounts of the river's water before they could make use of flows passing through their streams, into the Colorado and heading south. The conflict was most bitter sur- rounding Boulder Dam - a structure proposed to tame the Colorado, provid- ing flood control and form- ing a lake hundreds of feet deep, hundreds of miles long. California particularly clamored for this dam - and for Parker Dam which would be built 150 miles downstream to back up water to be sent to southern reaches of the Golden State. Water from the lake behind Boulder Dam would generate electricity to pump the California- bound water over the mountains and to power distant cities. Further pro- posals provided that jnst before the Colorado reached Mexico, water would be diverted into a brand-new "All-American" canal to irrigate the Imperial Valley. It was all compiled into one package and presented to Congress in 1922 as the Bonlder Canyon Project Act. But approval was to be nearly seven years in coming. From 1918 to 1921, the upriver and downriver states had been unable to resolve their differences. . . Each state sought to estab- lish its own limits on how much Colorado River water it would use. At the same time California demanded that the dam be built and upriver states vowed to block such a proposal in Congress until limits were established on each state's demands for river water. In late 1921, the Colorado River Com- mission was formed with representatives from each of the seven basin states and with then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover speaking for the federal government. Nine meetings of the commission failed to solve the dispute. Finally, in 1922, a IS-day session broke the impasse and resulted in the Colorado River Compact. This historic document divided the river into the upper and lower basins at Lee Ferry, Arizona - near the ArizonalUtah border. The Compact assumed an average flow down the Colorado River of some 18 million acre-feet.ofwater each year, a figure that was believed to be the average long-term runoff in the river's watershed, Each' . basin was allocated use of 7.5 million acre-feet. The states.of each basin then were responsible for divid- ing ihe use of the appor-' tioned water among them- selves. Colorado; New.' Mexico, Utah and. . Wyoming (upper basin . states) were to See that the flow of the river at Lee Ferry was not depleted below 75 million acre,feet for ,any ten conseCutive. years;' Moteover,-water .' stored in the upper basin that was not put to benefi- cial use had to remain available for use by Arizona, California and Nevada (lower basin states). In addition, as a compromise between the position held by upper basin states and the insis- tence of the Arizonadele- gation, lower basin states were to be allowed to increase their use of water by a total of 1 million acre" feet in any year. The Colorado River Compact was signed on ~ . ~'; ;~ ;.1 .r, 1",'- ,"! ,.]i .. -~"i '-3 IJ . ' , ~ ,'- ~; .'. .....................'..... . -,-~ ~:_~ . :? '., 'f