WSP12333

• File Number: 8410.300.60
• Description: Basin Multistate Organizations - Missouri Basin States Association - Reports
• State: CO
• Basin: Statewide
• Date: 1/27/1983
• Author: MBSA
• Title: An Issue Analysis of Out-Of-Basin Water Transfer
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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''To define the watershed as the whole river basin of a large, main stream

would make the protected area almost impossible to determine, and the

subject of much potential future disagreement.

"The lawyers' commi,ttee and a committee of the legislature studying the

problem made various recommendations, generally centering around

constitutional amendments which would reserve to areas of origin the water

necessary for future development, while at the same time guaranteeing firm

quantities for export to the water deficient areas. J-19 However, after

several futile attempts, the legislature finally dropped the idea of a

constitutional amendment recommended by the committee and issued,

instead, a proclamation that it was the 'established policy of the state' that
state plans for water projects give 'consideration' to the 'needs of the area

in which water originates' and that the legislature, when authorizing an

interbasin diversion project, 'consider' the construction of other works to

satisfy the 'reasonable ultimate requirements' of the originating watershed.J-

20 In addition the legislature passed the Burns-Porter Act providing

protection to water users in southern California, and incorporated by

reference the watershed of origin provisions of the Central Valley Project

Act into the California Water Project.

"Despite the persistence of respective doubts of adequate protection in both

North and South, the voters of the State in 1960 approved the California

Water Resources Development Bond Act providing for the financing of the

Feather River Project (State Water Projectl.J-22 In the meantime the

California Department of Water Resources assu red the public that their

-21-