WSP12637

• File Number: 8282.300
• Description: Colorado River Operations and Accounting - Lower Basin Administrative Procedures
• State: CO
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 8/1/1996
• Author: DOI-BOR
• Title: Description and Assessment of Operations-Maintenance and Sensitive Species of the Lower Colorado River - Volume I - Report - 08-01-96
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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OJ 23?9

(2) If sufficient mainstream water is available for release, as determined by
the Secretary of the Interior, to satisfy annual consumptive use in the aforesaid
states in excess of 7,500,000 acre feet, such excess consumptive use is
surplus, and 50% thereof shall be apportioned for use in Arizona and 50% for
use in California; provided, however, that if the United States so contracts
with Nevada, then 46% of such surplus shall be apportioned for use in Arizona
and 4 % for use in Nevada;

(3) If insufficient mainstream water is available for release, as determined by
the Secretary of the Interior, to satisfy annual consumptive use of 7,500,000
acre feet in the aforesaid three states, then the Secretary of the Interior, after
providing for satisfaction of present perfected rights in the order of their
priority dates without regard to state lines and after consultation with the
parties to major contracts and such representatives as the respective states may
designate, may apportion the amount remaining available for consumptive use
in such manner as is consistent with the Boulder Canyon Project Act as
interpreted by the opinion of this Court herein, and with other applicable
federal statutes, but in no event shall more than 4,400,000 acre feet be
apportioned for use in California including present perfected rights;

(4) Any mainstream water consumptively used within a state shall be charged
to its apportionment, regardless of the purpose for which it was released;

(5) Notwithstanding the provisions of Paragraphs (1) through (4) of this
subdivision (B), mainstream water shall be released or delivered to water users
(including but not limited to, public and municipal corporations and other
public agencies) in Arizona, California, and Nevada only pursuant to valid
contracts therefore made with such users by the Secretary of the Interior,
pursuant to Section 5 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act or any other
applicable federal statute;

(6) If, in anyone year, water apportioned for consumptive use in a state will
not be consumed in that state, whether for the reason that delivery contracts
for the full amount of the state's apportionment are not in effect or that users
cannot apply all of such water to beneficial use, or for any other reason,
nothing in this decree shall be construed as prohibiting the Secretary of the
Interior from releasing such apportioned but unused water during such year for
consumptive use in the other states. No rights to recurrent use of such water
shall accrue by reason of the use thereof;"

Therefore, based on the Law of the River, entitlements to the beneficial use of
Colorado River water in the lower basin have been established in the following four ways.

1. Court decrees for 4,156,847 acre-feet which includes the water rights perfected by the
States and which existed prior to the effective date of the Boulder Canyon Project, Indian

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