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Water Management Study: Upper Rio Grande Basin The investigation's final report-known as the Follett Report-covered in detail the stream flow, irrigated areas, canal systems, and diversions for every section ofthe basin from the San Luis Valley to EI Paso. The Report's findings that demand exceeded the supply of water led to the so-called embargo of 1896. This embargo was actually an order by the Secretary of the Interior, who suspended all applications for rights-of-way across public lands for use ofthe Rio Grande's water. This suspension prevented further irrigation development of any magnitude in Colorado and New Mexico. With some modification in 1907, this embargo remained in effect until May, 1925. In 1898 the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court said that the public interest, custom, and legislative and judicial decisions dictated that the doctrine of prior appropriation was-and always had been-the settled water law ofthe territory. This doctrine states that rights to use diverted water are chronological in nature; i.e., someone who can document that he first diverted water for a "productive use" at date X has priority claim-in perpetuity-to use that water over others whose documented first diversion came after date X. Colorado's water law, which dates from 1872, also embraces the prior-appropriation doctrine. The Texas Code, originated in 1913, does not embrace the appropriation doctrine to the extent that the Colorado and New Mexico Codes do. In 1902 Congress enacted the Reclamation Act. This legislation provided for the construction of public irrigation works for the reclamation of arid lands. The Reclamation Act also provides for the funding of these projects through a pool of monies received from the sale of public lands in 16 western states. Subsequently, Texas became the seventeenth state. Under the provisions of the Reclamation Act, the BuRec constructed Elephant Butte Dam at present-day Truth-or-Consequences, New Mexico. The dam was completed in 1916 with a New Mexico water right, initiated by the Secretary of the Interior, carrying a priority date of 1906. The multi-purpose functions of Elephant Butte Reservoir include the delivery of water to meet an annual 60,000 aftreaty requirement between the U.S. and Mexico, another outgrowth ofthe 1896 Follett Report.5 ~ I " I: r: , 5 The 1906 treaty formalizing the U.S. obligation to deliver 60,000 af of water to Mexico annually is generally believed to fix Mexican claims on surface water in the Basin for the foreseeable future, insofar as expanding the claims could be accomplished only through extremely difficult negotiations. There is, however, no treaty governing groundwater in aquifers shared by both countries (Utton 1993). C' Ii \ ~ f f ~ 10 ,- '2800 i~ ~ "