WSP12533

• File Number: 8282.400
• Description: Colorado River Operations and Accounting - Deliveries to Mexico
• State: CO
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 1/1/2000
• Author: Robert Jerome Glennon - Peter W Culp
• Title: The Last Green Lagoon - How and Why the Bush Administration Should Save the Colorado River Delta - Excerpted from Ecology Law Quarterly - Volume 28-Number 4 - 01-01-02
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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ECOLOGY lA W QUARTERLY

[Vol. 28:903

Water Treaty grants broad jurisdiction to IBWC to "plan, build,
and manage water works; to enter into further agreements
regarding international waters, "59 and to "settle all differences
that may arise between the two governments with respect to the
interpretation or application of this Treaty, subject to the
approval of the two governments. "60 IBWC also inherited the
powers of the older International Boundary Commission, created
in 1889 to manage border disputes.51 Thus, IBWC jurisdiction
extends through the entire border region, taking in both dry
lands and rivers, and includes not only water disputes but also
"virtually any border-related issue."62
The Compact and the Mexico-U.S. Water Treaty's division of
Colorado River water is responsible for the central problem of the
Law of the River: it apportions more water than actually exists. 63
The Compact and the Treaty allocate at least 17.5 maf.64 When
the Compact was signed in 1922, however, the annual flow of the
river past Lee's Ferry was estimated at 16.8 maf, based on flows
from 1896 to 1921;65 another study based on 1906 to 1921 flows
computed the average at 18.1 maf.56 In actuality, flows over the
past 400 years (based on analysis of tree rings) averaged only
13.5 maf.67

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59. See id at III (citations omitted).
60. See Mexico-U.S. Water Treaty, supra note 53, Art. 24(d). IBWC's jurisdiction
under the Mexico-U.S. Water Treaty consists of three distinct categories: its
"adjudicatory functions. " its "administrative functions, . and its "investigative
functions." Hesse, supra note 54, at 154. "Through its adjudicative powers. the IBWC
can call and question witnesses and bring actions in the courts of the United States
and Mexico. Through its administrative powers, the IBWC can undertake
construction projects needed to carry out agreements. Through. its investigative
duties, the IBWC can engage in' activities such as collecting information, measuring
surface water' consumption and loss. and assessing the reserves of surface water
available to each country.' ld
61. See Sinclair, supra note 33, at 111.
62. Hesse, supra note 54. at 153" 154~
63. This is not an unusual characteristic of Western water law. The prior
appropriation system that dominates in the West pe'rmits legal rights to more water
than there is water in a stream in any given year. See JOSEPH L. SAX ET AL., LEGAL
CONTROL OF WATER REsOURCES 105-108 (3id ed~ 2000).
64. See generuUy Mexico-U.S. Water Treaty, supra note 53; Colorado River
Compact, supra note 47.
65. See FRADKIN, supra note 9, at 188. The Reclamation Service later became the
Bureau of Reclamation.
66. See Garner. supra note 46, at472.
67. See CHARLES W. STOCKTON & GORDON C. JACOBY, JR., LoNG-TERM SURFACE-
WATER SUPPLY AND STREAMFLOW TRENDS IN THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN 38 (1976)
(Lake Powell Research Project Bulletin No. 18).

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