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annum. This was said to be sufficient to supply all the rights which then existed, as of 1922. In subparagraph B, as a concession to Arizona, in which the sacred Gila River ran, it was provided that in addition to the equal division, the Lower Basin was given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of waters by 1 million acre-feet per annum. In paragraph C the risk of an international treaty with Mexico is acknowledged. It is recognized that the United States government, in order to avoid international litigation, war or hard feeling might r make a division of water with Mexico. A provision for that was made, and it said that any water owed to Mexico will be paid out of the surplus, over and above the water apportioned to the Upper and Lower Basin. This raises a most interesting question concerning the Colorado River Compact. There was a fundamental belief that the average flow in the river was substantially above 16 million acre- feet. They were able to make a compact because they divided equally amongst each other, and reserved, for another era, the division of what was left over. They thought they would wait and see what Mexico did, or what the United States did with respect to Mexico. At this time, they would divide the additional water between the two basins. That leads to the saddest fact of word or pen. In our experience, since the signing of the compact, there is not 16 million acre-feet of water per annum in the river. Repeatedly, there have been extended periods in excess of ten year averages in which the average flow was as little as 13 million acre-feet. From 1953 - 1964, the average was only 11.5-11.8 million acre-feet. The question then is who bares the shortages? Subparagraph D also addresses the division between the Upper and the Lower Basin. It says that the states of the Upper Basin will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry, which is a halfway point of division between the Upper and Lower Basin, to be depleted below an aggregate of 75 million acre-feet for any ten consecutive year period. The Lower Basin, Bureau of Reclamation and many, many others, assumed that this means a guarantee to the Lower Basin that no matter what the supply is there will be 75 million acre-feet every ten years for the Lower Basin. How is this played out? Essentially, the Bureau of Reclamation, in administering the facilities that have been built on the river, passively acquiesced in the interpretation that this is a guarantee. The problem is complicated by the fact that the Upper Basin has not developed at the rate of the Lower Basin. The Upper Basin has not increased its consumptive uses, and at the present time, is able to deliver 75 million acre-feet every ten years, with no shortage to existing development in the Upper Basin. What is at stake, is the uncertainty of our future. In 1922 there was great unanimity and cohesion in Colorado and. in the Upper Basin about what kind of future we wanted. People wanted economic prosperity. I think that today, our wants are more complicated. Some of those wants and desires have to do with the allowing the water to remain in the streams to meet salinity and water quality concerns. In the 70 years from the signing of the Compact, there has been a disintegration in the cohesion which compelled Colorado and the other Upper Basin states to hold out for and obtain what they thought was an equal division of the water. 5