9373

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9373
• Author: Water Education Foundation.
• Title: Western Water
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: The Colorado River Compact
• Copyright Material: NO

sufficient water in the Colorado River for all needs for all time soon became
a glaring shortage. The seeds of controversy for the Colorado River Compact
were sown."
The controversial issues of today - water for Mexico, American Indian water
rights, endangered species, water quality and water transfers - and their relation-
ship to the past were the focus of a special symposium organized by the Water
Education Foundation. The May 28-31 event, Using History to Understand
Current Water Problems, marked the pending 75th anniversary of the Colorado
River Compact.
"The point of the compact was simply to make a fairly crude allocation of
quantities of water for consumptive use. Ambiguities perhaps were inevitable.
Certainly the lack of perfect vision into the future can be excused. So there are a
lot of problems around that we have to solve today," said David Getches, professor
of natural resources law at the University of Colorado.
"The question is how to work within a framework of the compact and the
rest of the law of the river to deal with the pressing issues that are on us," Getches
continued. "We're dealing with questions of banking and marketing of water
that were certainly not foreseen. The Mexican interest issues are going to get
much larger as the future unfolds. ... We need to figure out how to work with the
compact and get these problems solved. The compact was meant to be futuristic,
and our concerns now ought to focus on the future of the Colorado River. ...
To look at what we inherited to see how we can use it constructively for these
wider needs in the future."
If many modern-day issues were unforeseen when the compact was forged,
others simply were not addressed. For the 1922 negotiators, it was a foregone
conclusion that the federal government would continue its responsibility to the
Americans Indians regardless of a Colorado River Compact. The commissioners
intentionally chose to leave Mexico's claims completely out of compact negotia-
tions, and subsequently agreed unanimously to expunge from the record any
debate on Mexico, leaving it to a later agreement.
It is these issues as well as the politics within the region that drive the debate
today. At times, the rhetoric of 1997 parallels that of 1922 as the seven Colorado
River basin states push for less federal government involvement when it comes to
water use, water quality, transfers and instream flows, and water for American
Indians tribes and Mexico.
The federal vs. states dynamic prompted one participant at the May
symposium, attorney Jerome Muys, to wryly note that long-time water attorney
Northcutt "Mike" Ely, who served in the Department of the Interior (Interior)
during the Hoover administration, "was as much an ardent states' righter as
anyone I ever met. He used to say, in a very pragmatic way with a twinkle in
his eye, 'When you marry the U.S. Treasury, you get the federal government for
a mother-in-law.' So we recognize the reality of water resource development in
the West."
The desire for development is what prompted the states to meet with Hoover
and negotiate a compact in 1922. As the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau),
which built the many dams and diversion facilities along the Colorado, follows its
new mission of water resources management, the states, American Indian tribes,
environmentalists and other interests must now address a new era.
This Western Water marks the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Colorado
River Compact. The article includes a historical perspective on the compact
negotiations, explores the law of the river, discusses current issues facing the
upper and lower basins, and offers a glimpse of the future. Much of the content for
this magazine came from the Foundation's May symposium. The Foundation will
publish the full proceedings of the symposium, which was tape-recorded, by the
end of the year.

September/October 1997

"The point of the

compact was simply

to make a fairly

crude allocation of

quantities of water

for consumptive use.

Ambiguities perhaps

were inevitable.

Certainly the lack

of perfect vision into

the future can be

excused."

- David Getches

University of Colorado

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