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<br />1 <br />1 <br /> <br />The Colorado River Basin: The Agreemenu and the Resulu <br />irrigators to repay. This repayment mechanism, which is known as the Upper <br />Colorado River Basin Fund, was established by section 5 of the Colorado <br />River Storage Project Act.73 <br />Meanwhile, Arizona, having ratified the Colorado River Compact in 1944, <br />started working with Reclamation to capture a federal reclamation prize for <br />itself -- the Central Arizona Project (CAP). A 1947 report by Reclamation had <br />resurrected this dormant idea and endorsed it as now being economically <br />justified. However, <br />1 ... When Arizonans introduced a bill in Congress [in 1948) to authorize the <br />CAP, they encountered stiff opposition from Californians who argued that <br />Arizona was attempting to use water that did not belong to the state. ... <br />[D]issension centered on conflicting interpretations of the 1922 [Colorado <br />River) compact. The differing claims caused Congress to refuse approval of <br />' the CAP until the two states had resolved their differences. Congress did <br />not want to invest in a project for which there might be not water. <br />The news bitterly disappointed Arizonans. While the Upper Basin, <br />California, and Mexico were moving ahead with their projects, Arizonans <br />had remained stymied. They believed their only recourse was to appeal <br />once more to the U.S. Supreme Court.74 <br /> Arizona filed its fourth lawsuit against California in the U.S. Supreme Court <br /> in 1952, again seeking judicial apportionment of the Colorado River <br /> Compact's allocation to the Lower Basin. While the Court had refused <br /> Arizona's earlier suit in this regard on jurisdictional grounds and because the <br /> Lower Basin allocation exceeded then current uses,75 this time the Court was <br /> persuaded that Arizona might suffer harm if the dispute with California were <br /> not resolved. <br /> In defending against Arizona's suit, California argued for substantially more <br /> than the 4.4 million acre-feet per year provided to it by the Boulder Canyon <br /> Project Act. However, after 11 years of trial and arguments, Arizona emerged <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />73 Colorado River Storage Project Act, ch. 203, § 5, 70 Stat. 107 (1956) (codified as <br />amended at 43 U.S.C.A. § 620d (1986)). <br />74 Hundley, supm note 34, at 30-31. <br />75 Arizona v. California, 298 U.S. 558 (1936). <br />23 <br />