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Colorado River Compact Operations, Administration, and Compliance SEO Forum October 31, 2007 James Eklund, Assistant Attorney General' I. Colorado River Compact. Negotiated in 1922 by representatives of the seven Colorado River Basin states and the federal government; effective in 1929 after congressional approval in the Boulder Canyon Proiect Act (43 U.S.C. § 617 -0. Apportionment provisions: Article III(a): "There is hereby apportioned from the Colorado River System in perpetuity to the Upper Basin and to the Lower Basin respectively the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre feet of water per annum, which shall include all water necessary for the supply of any rights which may now exist." Article III(b): "In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a) the Lower Basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by one million acre per annum." Article III(c): "If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America shall hereafter recognize in the United States of Mexico any right to the use of any waters of the Colorado River System, such waters shall be supplied first from the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then, the burden of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin, and whenever necessary the States of the Upper Division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one -half of the deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided in paragraph (d)." (emphasis added) Article III(d): "The states of the Upper Division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre feet for any period of ten consecutive years reckoned in continuing progressive series beginning with the first day of October next succeeding the ratification of this compact." Article III(e): "The States of the Upper Division shall not withhold water, and the States of the Lower Division shall not require the delivery of water, which cannot reasonably be applied to domestic and agricultural uses. ' The views expressed in this presentation are solely those of the author, not the official position of the Colorado Department of Law or the State of Colorado.