9367 ‎(3)‎

• 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

amount up to a total of 1.7 m.a.f. if the United states
enjoyed a surplus. In the event of extraordinary drouqQt or

serious accident to its irrigation system, the Treaty also
allowed the United states to reduce the delivery below 1.5
m.a.f. in the same proportion as consumptive uses in the
United states were reduced.

At the time all of the basin states, except California,
viewed the Treaty with equanimity and supported its ratifica-
tion by the Senate.19 Hindsight has been much less comfort-
ing. "In actual fact, the treaty has proven to be extremely
vexatious to all states of the Colorado River Basin and

probably will become the subject of protracted litiqat-
'ion. ..." 2 0 There has been a natural tendency to second-
quess its negotiators. One theory is that fear of a Japanese

invasion of Mexico in 1941 and 1942 had panicked the Federal

Government into granting extravagant water concessions in
return for military collaboration.21 There is also consider-
able evidence that the United states traded away water on the
Colorado to obtain extra benefits on the Rio Grande.22

However, in 1944, Jean Breitenstein, then attorney for the

Colorado River Water conservation Board, arqued that the 1929
Pan American Arbitration Treaty would in any event compel the
United states to enter into a similar kind of arrangement.23

D. The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact

i
The Upper Basin states, plus Arizona, signed the Upper
Colorado River Basin Compact in 1948, Ch. 48, 63 stat:. 31

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