8014 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

The Colorado River Basin: The Agrnemenu and the Resulu the osition that ro'ects could not be selected and develo ment could not P P J P proceed until the Upper Division States agreed on a suballocation of the water apportioned to the Upper Basin by the Colorado River Compact.sl Given the federal government's requirements, and given Arizona's ratification of the Colorado River Compact in 1944, the execution of the Mexican Water Treaty with Mexico in 1944, and the continued rapid growth in the use of Colorado River water by California, the Upper Division States (and Arizonasa) promptly set about the negotiation of an interstate compact among themselves. The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact63 was executed in 1948 and ratified by all five signatory states and Congress by the next yeai..sa ' With this new compact in hand, the Upper Division States worked closely with Reclamation to refine Reclamation's 1946 report into a plan for development of the Upper Basin. The groundwork for what was to become the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) was laid in Reclamation's resulting 1950 report.65 The first bill to authorize the CRSP was introduced in Congress in 1952. 1 h I ... major t called for abillion-dollar dam-building program wit reservoirs at Echo Park on the Green River and at Glen Canyon on the 1 main stream near the Arizona-Utah border. The bill immediately aroused opposition from southern Californians who viewed any significant developments on the upper river as threats to their own water uses. More recent measurements of flow had been calling into question the rosy forecasts on which the 1922 [Colorado River) compact had been based. Major opposition also emerged nationwide and focused on the Echo Park reservoir, which would flood the unique and beautiful canyons of Dinosaur National Monument. The alarm escalated into the biggest battle over wilderness preservation since John Muir had tried to keep a dam out of Hetch Hetchy Valley [California) at the turn of the century. The contest 1 61 Id. at 3. ~ Arizona, even though a Lower Division State within the meaning of the Colorado River Compact, also lies partially within the Upper Basin as that term is defined in the compact. Supra notes 36 and 41. Thus, it received a portion of the beneficial consumptive use apportioned to the Upper Basin by the compact. ~ Upper Colorado River Basin Compact in T. WITMER, supra note 36, at 339. 64 The states' and Congress' acts of ratification are cited in T. WITMER, supra note 36, at 352. ~ BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, COLORADO RIVER STORAGE PROJECT AND PARTICIPATING PROJECTS: UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN (1950). 21