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I <br /> <br />alarmed by the potential effect of the Lower Basin's rapid <br />agricultural and municipal development upon their water use, <br />fearing they would be preempted by prior water rights <br />perfected by California and Arizona. This anxiety was <br />intensified by the Supreme Court's decision in Wyoming <br />v. Colorado, 259 U.S. 419 (1922), which applied the doctrine <br />of prior appropriation to apportion the right to use the <br />water of the Laramie River between Wyoming and Colorado. <br />It was clear that because of their enormous cost the <br />high dam and all-American canal project could only be <br />undertaken by the Federal Government. It also became clear <br />that due to opposition from the electrical power; industryl0 <br />and misgivings in other quarters Congressional approval of <br />the project would depend upon the support, or at least <br />neutrality, of the other Basin states. These states, <br />however, were determined to resist the project unless they <br />received satisfactory assurances of their future,use of the <br />water of the River. Each camp was amenable to accommoda- <br />tion. In 1921 Congress authorized Federal parti' 7 ipation in <br />the negotiation of a Compact, see 42 Stat. 171 (1921), and <br />each Basin state quickly appointed a commissioner., They <br />convened in Washington in January, 1922, elected! the United <br />States representative, then Secretary of Commerce Herbert <br />Hoover, as their chairman, and spent parts of the?next eleven <br />months in devising a compact. <br />The Compact divided the entire. Colorado <br />system, <br />-4-