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

First bucket of concrete at Glen Canyon
Dam, which forms Lake Powell, just
upstream of the Grand Canyon. The dam
was completed and its gates closed in 1963;
the reservoir did not fill until 1980.

6. The Colorado River Basin Project
Act of 1968, which authorized the
Central Arizona Project and limited its
diversions during shortages to better
assure California its annual 4.4 million
acre-feet apportionment.
7. The "Criteria for Coordinated
Long-Range Operation of Colorado
River Reservoirs" of 1970, which
provided for the coordinated operation
of reservoirs in the upper and lower
basins and set conditions for water
storage and releases from Lake Powell
and Lake Mead.
8. Code of Federal Regulations, Title
43, Part 417,1972, which requires that
use of Colorado River water in the
lower basin by an entitlement holder
must not exceed the amount reason-
ably required for the beneficial uses
authorized by the entitlement.
9. Minute 242 of the International
Boundary and Water Commission,
United States and Mexico, negotiated
in 1973, requiring actions to reduce
the salinity of water delivered to
Mexico at Morelos Dam.
10. The Colorado River Basin Salinity
Control Act of 1974, which authorized
desalting and salinity control projects
to improve Colorado River water
quality.

8

The compact divided the river's waters
between the upper and lower basins,
requiring the four upper basin states to
send 75 million acre-feet of water over
each successive 10-year period to the
lower basin, equivalent to 7.5 million
acre-feet each annually of "beneficial,
consumptive use."
"I think it's useful to think of the
compact as a kind of a constitution,"
said John Leshy, Interior solicitor. "It's
a very broad framework of principles
that, like constitutions, evolve over
time and get fleshed out here and
there. It's a work in progress."
Nevertheless, Leshy observed,
"There are some notable silences in
the compact, probably some inten-
tional, some not. The compact is
silent on marketing, for example,
and interstate or interbasin transfers.
We now argue about that issue in
terms of the compact's definition of
'beneficial consumptive use,' which, by
the way, is not defined in the compact.
It's silent on water quality, which also
has some modern reverberations. It's
silent on groundwater which, in
particular parts of the basin, is an
emerging issue."
As the Southwest works to
address today's issues, debate centers
on whether the law of the river is
flexible enough to handle these issues,
such as the question of marketing.
The environment, rafting and other
recreational concerns also playa bigger
role in the watershed than they did
75 years ago.
While some would argue that the
compact is too rigid to handle these
issues, others contend the components
of the law of the river are proof that
flexibility does exist where it is
needed. "Many unexpected events
have happened over a relatively short
time span," said Gary Weatherford of
the law firm Weatherford and Taaffe.
"It's been incremental change, but it's
been really very dramatic when you
look at it in a cumulative sense, and
it's all occurred at the foot of that
statutory, the law of the river. So
somehow we've been able to change
in spite of that monolith."
Western Water