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<br />The Missouri River Basin: The Agreements and the Results
<br />Court, or legislation), although some tributaries are the subject of Court
<br />decrees or interstate compacts.102 While the Missouri has thus avoided the
<br />lengthy interstate litigation that is the hallmark of the Colorado, the political
<br />history of water resources development in the Missouri River Basin has been
<br />no less complicated than that of the Colorado River Basin.
<br />For lack of an interstate compact or court decree, there is no legal designation
<br />of upper basin and lower basin states in the Missouri River Basin. Montana,
<br />the two Dakotas, Wyoming, and Colorado have clearly seen themselves as
<br />upper basin states, with their historic interests having been in the irrigation
<br />benefits to be derived from the development of the basin's waters. Iowa and
<br />Missouri have always perceived themselves as lower basin states whose
<br />vested interests lie in flood control, navigation, and river regulation to
<br />maintain adequate depths for the water intakes which their cities have in the
<br />Missouri River. Nebraska and Kansas, since they both border the lower
<br />mainstem of the river on their eastern boundaries yet extend westward to the
<br />acid climate of the Great Plains, have had an interest both in irrigation on the
<br />one hand and flood control and navigation on the other.
<br />ioz The Belle Fourche, South Platte, Republican, Yellowstone, and Niobrara Rivers are
<br />the subject of interstate compacts executed between, respectively, South Dakota and Wyoming
<br />in 1943; Colorado and Nebraska in 1923; Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska in 1942; Montana,
<br />North Dakota, and Wyoming in 1950, and Wyoming and Nebraska in 1962. The first four
<br />compacts may be found in T. WITMER, supra note 36, at 33, 319, 260, and 361, respectively.
<br />The Upper Niobrara River Compact may be found in the act of Congress ratifying the same.
<br />Act of August 4, 1969, Pub. L. No. 91-52, 83 Stat. 86 (1969). In addition, the Laramie River
<br />has been apportioned between Colorado and Wyoming by decree of the U.S. Supreme Court in
<br />Wyoming v. Colorado, supra note 14, and the North Platte River has been apportioned
<br />between Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming in Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U.S. 589 (1945)
<br />(Frankfurter, J., and Rutledge, J., dissenting). Litigation is pending at this time before the
<br />Court concerning its previous decree on the North Platte River. Nebraska v. Wyoming,
<br />No. 108, Original.
<br />The United States and Canada have also entered into a treaty which governs, in general,
<br />all boundary waters between the two countries and which, in Article VI, apportions the waters
<br />of the Milk River, a small tributary which arises in Montana, flows into Canada, and then
<br />returns to Montana and thence to the Missouri River. Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 in
<br />T. WITMER, supra note 36, at 381. While the treaty did not play a role in the political
<br />agreements of the 1940s which led to the Pick-Sloan Plan, discussed infra, Canada's
<br />assertions that the treaty would be violated by importation of Missouri River waters into the
<br />Red River Basin in northeastern North Dakota eventually played a significant role in the
<br />demise of the Garrison Diversion Unit of the Pick-Sloan Plan.
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