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CI? N t"- N' c "The term 'Colorado River System' means that portion of the Colorado River and its tributaries within the United States of America." Using the Colorado River Compact as the basic document in this case, an entirely different interpretation than that made by the Supreme Court can be made of the Boulder Canyon Project Act. It should be pointed out here that there are lower basin tribu- taries otl'ier than the Gila River, which enter the Colorado River below Lee Ferry, some above Boulder Dam and some below.' The Master in his decision held that his apportionment of waters applied only to the waters available from Boulder Dam. This decision, in effect, would have allowed the use of those tributaries entering the Colorado River between Lee Ferry and the upper end of Lake Mead without charge to the user state. The Supreme Court corrected this obvious error by stating that such use would be charged to the user state as a part of the apportionment from Lake Mead. The United States interv.ened in the action for the purpose of claiming main stream and tributary waters for use on Indian reservations, national forests and other federal lands. The Master declined to make a finding on tributary waters but followed the prevailing federal theory on main stream waters as regards to reservation of water supplies by the federal government. The principal issue at stake was the amount of water needed "to satisfr, the future as well as the present needs ofthe'"Indian reservations'. In arriving at this future need the V~ster determined this by the number of irrigable acres within each Indian reservation. The total amount of water allocated to the United States in the decision was about 1,000,000 acre-feet annually. The Supreme Court agreed with the ~~ster's conclusions~arid findings on this point. A very significant part of the decree which is of particular interest to the upper basin states reads as follows: "Finally, we note our agreement with the Master that 11ll uses of main stream water within a State are to be charged against the State's apportionment, which of course includes uses by the United States." Throughout its decision it is apparent that the Supreme Court was preoccupied by "main stream" water. In order to justify this preoccupation the Court had to interpret the Boulder canron Proj- ect Act as', dealing only with main stream water. The Bou der Canyon Project Act, however, was based upon the Colorado River Compact. The Colorado River Compact obviously and expressly deals with the waters of the Colorado River System as therein defined. If such were not the case it probably would never have been executed by any of the signatory states, and certainly not by the upper basin states. The most disconcerting feature of the decision is the -16-