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<br />0014j7 <br /> <br />In the early phases of the negotiations half a dozen or <br />so basic concepts were advanced and rejected. Perhaps the <br />most serious, presented by New Mexico Commissioner stephen <br />Davis and heartily endorsed by Arizona's Norviel, was that <br />each state be guaranteed water sufficient to irrigate a <br />certain number of acres, with a mechanism for possible <br />increases at a later point.106 However, the negotiations <br />were soon dominated by a proposal presented by Colorado <br />commissioner Delph Carpenterl07 on November 11. His concept <br />was that the River Basin be divided into two partsl08, that <br />the boundary between them be set at Lee's Ferry, and that the <br />entire flow of the River system be divided up between the two <br />divisions. By working upstream from the Yuma measurements, <br />by allowing the Lower Basin the full use of its tributaries, <br />and by neglecting to account for Upper Basin depletions, he <br />reckoned that in order to provide the Lower Basin with one <br />half of all the water in the system the Upper Basin should <br />deliver to it 36 percent of the flow at Lee's Ferry. <br />According to Carpenter's calculations, this translated into a <br />delivery of 6,240,000 acre-feet per annum.l09 <br />The negotiations on this subject evolved into a contest <br />essentially between Norviel, on the one hand, and the Upper <br />Basin Commissioners, on the other. Norviel pressed for an <br />allocation based on the total irrigable acreage in each <br />Basin, then grudgingly agreed to the proposition of dividing <br />all the water in the River between the two Basins on a <br /> <br />-42- <br />