9367 ‎(2)‎

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9367
• Author: Colorado Water Workshop.
• Title: Proceedings
• USFW Year: 1992.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
• Copyright Material: NO

Arizona to swallow, as the Act gave California priority to the first
4.4 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado mainstem. In
essence, the Central Arizona Project [and this plays into the current
discussions among the states], was designed to be financed on surplus
water, i. e., water that was unused in the Upper Basin and by the other
states. As other states develop, less water will be available to the
CAP.
In exchange for the authorization of the Central Arizona proj ect,
the Secretary of Interior was directed to proceed with the
construction of certain Upper Basin "participating proj ects" that had
been authorized in the 1956 Act. However, no money for construction
of those proj ects had been appropriated by Congress. The construction
on the participating projects was to start not later than the date of
the first delivery of water from the Central Arizona Project. The
date of that first delivery of water through the Central Arizona
Project has come and gone and, needless to say, not all of those
participating projects were constructed.
Finally, the 1968 Act provided several directives to the
Secretary of Interior in the coordinated operation of the federal
reservoirs on the Colorado River. Congress directed that the
Secretary prepare what is called a "Consumptive Uses and Losses"
report every five years, which provides a breakdown the consumptive
uses on a state by state basis. The Secretary is also required to
propose criteria for the coordinated long range operation of federal
reservoirs. He is to review those criteria every five years, and
report to Congress annually on the operation under those criteria for
the proceeding year and the upcoming year.
More importantly, the Secretary was directed, through the
criteria, to store water in and release water from Lake Powell in
order to preserve the ability of the Upper Basin to meet its delivery
obligations under the Mexican Treaty (the Upper Basin disputes that
it has any such obligation), and the Colorado River Compact. This is
to be done in a way that ensures that the ability of the Upper Basin
States to develop their entitlements under the Law of the River is not
impaired. In essence, this part of the 1968 Act implemented the terms
of Article III.E of the Compact, which states that the Upper Basin
will not withhold water if that water is reasonably needed for use in
the Lower Basin.
The Act provides that the Secretary will make an annual
determination of what is called" 602 (a) storage." This is the minimum
amount of water that is necessary to be in storage for the Upper Basin
states to meet the ten year total delivery obligation of 75 million
acre- feet. That amount of water is stored in these reservoirs for
compact delivery purposes, and cannot be called by the Lower Basin
under Article III.E of the Compact. Additionally, the 1968 Act and
the criteria contain what are called "equalization provisions" between.
Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The equalization provisions were enacted
for two reasons. -
First, the implementation of Article III.E provided protection
from water being unnecessarily drained from Lake Powell into Lake Mead
through the operation of Article III.E of the Compact. Secondly, the
equalization provision balance storage between Upper and Lower Basins,
as dictated by the demands of power customers from Lake Powell and
Lake Mead to maintain power heads in both of those reservoirs.

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