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<br />Sharing Colorado River Water: History, Public Policy and the Colorado River Compact <br /> <br /> <br />Page 2 of 15 <br /> <br />28-31 Santa Fe conference, from individual speakers, panel discussions and infonnal <br />remarks and comments. <br /> <br />The Compact: History & Public Policy <br /> <br />The theme of the May 28-31 symposium, "Using History to Understand Current Watt <br />Problems," broadly interpreted the significance of the compact. It invited participants <br />view the compact both as an historical event and as public policy. Reviewing the <br />compact's creation and legacy in this way demonstrated that the boundary between <br />history and public policy is not always clearly defined. <br /> <br />Occurring at a certain time and place, all laws and public policies have an historical a <br />cultural significance. This significance gets more attention, however, when the Colon <br />River is involved, the "River of the West." The West has always been a land of myth <br />legend, its symbolic importance at times overlaying, and even eclipsing its physical <br />reality of land, water and people. And the Colorado River shares this grandeur and <br />mystique. <br /> <br />Some of this rubs off on Colorado River public policy studies. What seems called for <br />a broader, deeper and more varied approach to such studies. Viewed accordingly the <br />Colorado River Compact is revealed as a complex historical, cultural and public polic <br />document. <br /> <br />For those interested then in the development of western water, whether the hydrology <br />history or current affairs, the Colorado River Compact and, more broadly, the <br />management of the Colorado River becomes a rich vein to mine. More than just a wal <br />topic, the compact grandly represents a central theme of western water; i.e., the <br />allocation of scarce water resources among competing interests to ensure present and <br />future growth and development. The compact is this theme writ large. <br /> <br />The conference theme also has implications beyond the Colorado River. Its broad anc <br />interdisciplinary view of water policy, an approach that comes naturally to Colorado <br />River studies, also is applicable in other situations of lesser scale; e.g., when managin <br />the San Pedro, Santa Cruz or the Verde rivers. History also can be used to understand <br />current water issues along these rivers. <br /> <br />History of the Compact <br /> <br />By the early 1920s the Colorado Basin states were anxious about their share of the <br />Colorado River. Then, as now, California's growth was viewed with concern. <br />Burgeoning growth meant increased water demand, and the other Colorado Basin stat <br />feared California would establish priority rights to Colorado River water. That <br />California contributed the least amount of runoff to the river added gall to the situatio <br /> <br />(In her conference presentation, Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevadc <br />Water Authority, commented, "Things have changed, but what remains the same is th <br />California was the problem back then, and California is the problem today.") <br /> <br />Concern was hardly allayed by a federal report recommending the construction of a d <br /> <br />http://ag.arizona.edu/ AZW A TERlarroyo/l 0 1 comm.html <br /> <br />9/12/2006 <br />