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<br />~ <br /> <br />assurances that it could fully utilize the Gila River System.60 It may be appropriate to <br />conclude that the negotiators intended to apportion the mainstem consumptive uses 50/5061 <br />for an interim period of time. <br />Article III (c) <br /> <br />"If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America <br />shall hereafter recognize in the United States of Mexico any right to <br />the use of any waters of the Colorado River System, such waters shall <br />be supplied first from the waters which are surplus over and above the <br />aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and if <br />such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then, the burden <br />of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the Upper Basin and the <br />Lower Basin, and whenever necessary the States of the Upper <br />Division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half of the <br />deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided in paragraph <br />(d)." <br /> <br />Comment: This article may be the most contentious and ambiguous in the compact. In 1922, <br />there was no treaty with Mexico, but the negotiators believed one was inevitable. Note that <br />the aggregate of paragraphs (a) and (b) totals 16 maf per annum. The Mexican Treaty <br />delivery dispute will be described in more detail later in the paper. <br /> <br />Article III (d) <br /> <br />"The States of the Upper Division will not cause the flow ofthe river <br />at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,0000 acre- <br />feet for any period of ten consecutive years reckoned in continuing <br />progressive series beginning with the first day of October next <br />succeeding the ratification of this compact." <br /> <br />Comment: Note that this provision applies to the "States of the Upper Division" not the <br />Upper Basin. Arizona has Upper Basin territory, but is not a State of the Upper Division. <br /> <br />Article III ( e) <br /> <br />"The States of the Upper Division shall not withhold water, and the <br />States ofthe Lower Division shall not require the delivery of water, <br />which cannot reasonably be applied to domestic and agricultural <br />uses." <br /> <br />60 Norris Hundley, "Water and the West," University of California Press, 1975, pages 202 and 292. <br /> <br />61 Hundley describes the negotiations in detail, pages 185-202. <br /> <br />Page -21- <br />