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Article IV <br />(b) Subject to the provisions of this compact; water of <br />the Colorado River System may be impounded and used for the <br />generation of electric power, but such impounding and use sha11 <br />be subservient to the use and consumpCion of such water for <br />agricultural and domestic purposes and shall not interfere <br />with or prevent use for such dominant purposes. <br />Article VII <br />T?othing in this compact shaZl be construed as affecting <br />the obligations of the United States of America to Indian <br />tribes. <br />Article XI <br />This compact shall become binding and obligatory when it <br />shall have been approved by the Legislatures of each of the <br />signatory StaCes and by the Congress of the United States. ... <br />B. Historical background <br />During the period 1905-1907, there occurred a series of <br />disastrous floods in the lower basin of the Colorado River. <br />A considerable portion of the Imperial Valley was inundated <br />and the Salton Sea was created. Nature made it quite obvious <br />that settlement along the lower reaches of the Colorado River <br />was fraught with uncertainty. In the years following these <br />floods, plans for controlling the Colorado River gathered <br />momenCum in the lower basin, spearheaded by private and public <br />organizations of the State of California. <br />The residents of the upper reaches of the Colorado River <br />had no consuming interest in the problems of the lower basin. <br />Colorado and Wyoming were busily engaged in disputing each <br />other's rights to the waters of the North Platte River, a <br />tributary of the riissouri River. The resulting decision of <br />the United States Supreme Court in the case of W omin vs. <br />Col?ora_do established the legal principle that t e octrine of <br />prior appropriation controls regardless of state boundaries. <br />When the full imnort of this decision began to sink in, the <br />other states of the Colorado River Basin realized that the <br />already rapidly growing State of California was presented with <br />an opportunity to grab off the lion's share of the flow of the <br />Colorado River. <br />-3-