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The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum: A Deal is Not a Deal Congress.` The need for financing for water projects, coupled with Arizona's refusal to ratify the Colorado River Compact, prompted the next chapter in the river's institutional history. The Upper Division States were anxious to have the compact take effect, as it would ensure that the doctrine of prior appropriation would not be applied as among the seven basin states. For its part, California was anxious to gain Congressional authorization of and appropriations for the construction of the All American Canal`s and Hoover Dam47 pursuant to the federal reclamation program. The deal that was eventually struck, over Arizona's objections, was embodied in the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928.` In this act, Congress authorized construction of the massive Hoover Dam (over 26 million acre-feet of storage capacity) on the lower mainstem of the Colorado River,49 as desired by California, in exchange for California having to agree, by act of its legislature,50 to a limit of 4.4 million acre-feet per year on its share of the Lower Basin's apportionment of 7.5 million acre-feet per year of beneficial consumptive use per annum, plus one-half of any surplus available to the Lower Basin. California did this the next year.51 Furthermore, the act provided that it became effective, as did Congress' ratification of the Colorado River Compact, only when the compact was ratified by six of the seven states.sa 's Colorado River Compact, sr~prn note 38, at art. XI. '~ The canal which first served California's Imperial Valley diverted water from the Colorado River south of the international border with Mexico and traversed Mexico before entering the United States. Mexico's price for this arrangement was the right to take one-half of the water diverted. Since the turn of the century, Imperial Valley irrigators had dreamed of having a canal located entirely within the United States -ergo, the All-American Canal. " Hoover Dam would tame the devastating floods to which the lower mainstem of the river had been periodically subjected and firm up the water supplies that would be apportioned to the Lower Basin when the compact took effect. 'B Boulder Canyon Project Act, ch. 42, 45 Stat. 1057 (1928) (codified as amended at 43 U.S.C.A. §§ 617-617t (1986)). The act took its name from the then anticipated location of Hoover Dam in Boulder Canyon. However, when Reclamation did further engineering work, the Black Canyon proved to be a better site and is where Hoover Dam was in fact constructed. 49 Boulder Canyon Project Act, ch. 42, § 1, 45 Stat. 1057 (1928) (codified at 43 U.S.C.A. § 617 (1986)). s° Boulder Canyon Project Act, ch. 42, § 4(a), 45 Stat. 1058 (1928) (codified at 43 U.S.C.A. § 617c(a) (1986)). si Act of March 4, 1929, Cal. Stats. 1929, p. 37; Deering's Gen. L. (1944), Act 1491. s2 Boulder Canyon Project Act, ch. 42, §§ 4, 13, 45 Stat. 1058, 1064 (1928) (codified as amended at 43 U.S.C.A. §§ 617c, 6171(1986)). 18 i~ 1 1 1