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The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum: A Deal is Not a Deal California, and Nevada have, for the first time, begun consuming an aggregate of about 7.5 million acre-feet per year from the mainstem of the Colorado River -- a feat made possible almost entirely by federally financed and constructed projects. In the Upper Division States, the same result has not obtained. While the four storage units of the CRSP were constructed, nine of the 25 authorized CRSP participating projects89 have not been constructed: • The Pine River Extension project was deauthorized in 1968,90 albeit with the concurrence of the state in which the project would have been located. Construction of the La Barge, Savery-Pot Hook, Fruitland Mesa, West Divide, and San Miguel Projects has been, in the euphemism of the bureaucracy, "indefinitely deferred."sl The Animas-La Plata Project, even though it became the cornerstone of a major 1986 Indian water rights settlement that was subsequently confirmed in legislation passed by Congress in 1988,92 remains mired in litigation and controversy, with construction having not yet been initiated. ~ Consumptive uses (diversions minus return flows to the river) reached 7.5 million acre- feet for the first time in calendar year 1989. They actually exceeded this limit, due to "inadvertent overruns," by a slight amount that year and by about 150,000 acre-feet the next year. While annual fluctuations will occur, consumptive uses are expected to remain near or at this limit from now on. 89 Counting the Central Utah Project as a single participating project, 21 participating projects have been authorized (including the originally authorized, but subsequently de- authorized, Pine River Extension). If the Central Utah Project's five authorized units (Vernal, Jensen, Upalco, Uintah, and Bonneville) are counted as five separate projects, then there have been 25 authorized participating projects (again including the Pine River Extension). so Colorado River Basin Project Act, Pub. L. No. 90-537, § 501(a), 82 Stat. 897 (1968) (amending 43 U.S.C.A § 620a)). 91 Furthermore, the withdrawal from the public domain of the lands required for the La Barge Project was revoked in 1968. Revocation of the withdrawals for the other four projects is presently pending. See UPPER COLORADO RIVER COMMISSION, supra note 33, at 45, 47. ~ Colorado Ute Indian Water Rights Settlement Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-585, 102 Stat. 2973. 28 1 t 1 'J