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

the expense of state authority and diminished the potency of
interstate compacts. Despite express disclaimers of any
intent to affect issues between the Upper and Lower Basins,

the decision's disregard of Arizona's and Nevada's tribu-

taries in determining how to divide the waters of the

"Colorado River system" has aggravated, if not generated, the

current controversy over the Upper Basin's Mexican Treaty
obligations30 (to be elaborated later in this paper). The
Upper Basin is dismayed and the Lower Basin delighted by the
notion that, if the Lower Basin's tributaries can be dis-
counted so effortlessly by the Supreme Court for Lower Basin
apportionment purposes, the Court might not with similar
abandon overlook those same tributaries if it were called

upon to decide whether there is "surplus" water under the
provisions of ArtiCle III (c) of the Compact to be used to
satisfy the Mexican Treaty burden. To the extent there is
such a surplus, the Upper Basin'S Treaty obligation is
diminished.

Excluding the Lower Basin's tributaries below Lee's
Ferry,the contributions from and allocations of Colorado
River water to the Basin states look approximately as follows
as a result of the 1922 Compact, the Upper Colorado River
Basin Compact, and Arizona v. California:

71

Apportionment3l
of Water
(per cent)
20.7
30.6
24.3

Arizona
California
Colorado

contribution
to Flow
(per cent)
1

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