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<br />j <br /> <br />17 <br /> <br />~ <br />" <br /> <br />,. <br /> <br />rights to guard against a Colorado monopolization to the Upper Basin uater <br /> <br />supply. So while the Bureau of Reclamation did in effect force a settlement <br /> <br />by hOlding back approval [or pt"ojects until one "as reached, tile Upper B<J.sin <br /> <br />soates felt that such a settlement uas actually in their Olm best interests. <br /> <br />Precise allotments ,;auld afford these states a guarantee of future ,rater <br /> <br />availability, uhich was almost as important as present use in that the Upper <br /> <br />... Basin was not developing nearly as rapidly as the Lower Basin. The whole <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />~. Upper Basin was using only a relatively small portion of their 7.5 million <br /> <br />) acre-feet. It was estimated that between 1914 and 19<15 the average depletions <br /> <br />'J <br />., <br />'-,j <br /> <br />, <br />! <br /> <br /> <br />__-,"10.- ~~., <br /> <br />at Lee Ferry amounted to less than two million acre-feet per year. Celorado's <br /> <br />consumption, however, l>'aS the largest among the other upper states, amounting <br /> <br />to about half of this total. 'Itlis would be influential in the 1948 determination <br /> <br />f . t 1U B.64 <br />o apportlOnmen among t 1e pper aSln. <br /> <br />Another "push factor" tm,ards a revised Upper Basin compact ,>'as the inter- <br /> <br />national agreement signed by the United States and Mexico on February 3, 1944. <br /> <br />Some of the impetus to sign this agreement came from the State Department's desire <br /> <br />to advance the Good Neighbor policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially in the <br />65 <br />waning years of World War II. Some of the impetus can also be attributed to <br /> <br />a fear, especiallY among the Upper Basin, that Mexican requirements in the booming <br /> <br />Mexicali Valley might establish a dangerous precedent of big deliveries across <br /> <br />the border in the absence of a limit to such deliveries. Whatever the causes, <br /> <br />the treaty was signed with Mexico which gave the ~lexicans 1.5 million acre-feet <br /> <br />of the Colorado River's water. Three weel~s later, Arizona finally signed the <br /> <br />COlorado River Compact, seeing that any further delay in signing would be fruit- <br />66 <br />less and potentially destructive to its mm future uater supply. <br /> <br />It seems paradoxical that the Upper basin states felt threatened both with <br /> <br />- <br />