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<br />001431 <br /> <br />Although soon after the Compact was signed Wyoming's <br />Compact Commissioner (and subsequently Governor) Frank <br />Emerson congratulated himself and his colleagues upon <br />aChieving a "concise ... final form that would not be <br />misinterpreted,"12 the Compact has generated many conflicts. <br />Perhaps the most intractable current issue concerns the <br />relationship between Paragraphs (a) and (d) of Article III. <br />It is frequently presumed that Paragraph (d) allows the Lower <br />Basin to exercise "the first call on the water up to a total <br />of 7,500,000 acre-feet each 10 years, "13 as Herbert Hoover <br />expressed the theory to Arizona's Congressman Hayden in <br />1923. In periods of short supply, though, such a demand <br />would deny the Upper Basin the 7,500,000 acre-feet appor- <br />tioned to it "in perpetuity," apparently contrary to the <br />meaning of Paragraph (a). <br />B. The Boulder Canyon Project Act <br />Following three unsuccessful efforts in various sessions <br />of Congress, the fourth heavily amended version of the <br />"Swing-Johnson" billl4 was passed as the Boulder Canyon <br />Project Act of 1928, 43 U.S.C. ~617 (1976). The statute <br />authorized the construction of the Hoover Dam (which was <br />actually built in Black, not Boulder, Canyon) and of the all- <br />American Canal between Laguna Dam (now Imperial Dam) on the <br />Lower River and the Imperial and Coachella valleys. The Act <br />required the Secretary of Interior to contract for the <br />storage and delivery of water from Lake Mead and for the <br /> <br />-6- <br />