Laserfiche WebLink
<br />"''1..", l'0f <br />lhJ 1. J (j 't <br /> <br />940 <br /> <br />ECOLOGY lAW QUARTERLY <br /> <br />[Vol. 28:903 <br /> <br />i- <br /> <br />Allocation to Municipalities: 1.212 maf, split into two <br />priorities: <br />Fourth priority: split between the Metropolitan Water <br />District (MWD) of southern California and the City of Los <br />Angeles, for 550,000 acre-feet; and <br />Fifth priority: split between MWD and L.A. for 550,000 <br />acre-feet, and San Diego for 112,000 acre-feet. <br />Additional Allocation to Agriculture: <br />Sixth priority: 0.3 maf, to lID, with a small share for PVID; <br />and <br />. Seventh (and last) priority: all remaining water to other <br />agricultural interests. 244 <br />Thus, the Seven- party Agreement daringly provided for the <br />allocation of 5.36+ maf, or 1 maf more than California's <br />allotment under the BCPA. To divert this amount, California <br />would use the unused apportionments of the Upper Basin and <br />the other Lower Basin states, as well as the occasional "surplus" <br />flows resulting from heavy flow years. If California were ever <br />limited to 4.4 maf, however, MWD and San Diego stood to lose <br />662,000 af - half of MWD's and all of San Diego's Colorado River <br />supply. <br />No one considered this to be a serious problem when surplus <br />flows were plentifu1.' southem California's future cities were <br />barely even large towns, and urban water development elsewhere <br />in the Lower Basin seemed unlikely. After all, in the 1930s Las <br />Vegas was an anonymous, tumbleweed settlement, Denver a <br />"cow town,"and Salt Lake City a small agricultural center.245 <br />Phoenix and Tucson were only small towns, and many of the <br />engineers who built the CAP were not yet even bom. <br />. As the Upper and Lower Basins developed, however, the <br />margin of safety for municipal water supplies shrank rapidly. In <br />the 1980's, MWD and the San Diego County Water Authority <br />(SDCWA) began circulating proposals for "ag-to-urban" water <br />transfers. 246 Predictably, these proposals met with strong <br />resistance.247 A 1989 MWD /IID water conservation agreement, in <br />which MWD sought 106,100 af of water obtained from <br /> <br />" <br />II <br />~ <br />~ <br /> <br />244. See id. <br />245. Between 1930 and 2000, the population of Las Vegas grew from 18.000 to <br />1.5 million; Denver from 356,000 to 2.1 million; and Salt Lake City-Ogden from <br />260,000 to 1.3 million. See Metropolitan (MSA) Population Data by Decade. at <br />htip: / /recenter. tamu.edu/ datajpopmd. <br />246. See Rita Schmidt Sudman, In the News: Colorado River Update, WESTERN <br />WATER, Jan.-Feb. 1998 at 3. <br />247. See id. at 3. <br />