BOARD00100

• Board Meeting Date: 5/11/1960
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

I

still must release water from Navajo Reser-
voir, or the streamflows, to take care of
those downstream rights until such time as
their shortages equal the shortages for the
Animas River.

We think this gives us protection that
perhaps, under the strict terms of the Com-
pact, would be open to debate. In other
words, this shortage sharing provision only
exists when they are not getting the water
to which they are legally entitled to under the
Compact. Frankly,. gentlemen, we are unable
to understand how we can go any further in
the state of Colorado. I don't know how you
can put things on a more equitable basis, and
I think it is a considerable advantage to the
State of Colorado, this provision that we have
in here. Most of the time the greatest short-
ages occur on the Animas River. In many years
when we are. short on the Animas, there is
sufficient water. in the San Juan. Even though
it is still below Compact requirements, they
have to release it until their users from the
main stem of the San Juan equal our shortages
on the Animas.

I

This view is not shared, apparently, by
the Southwestern Board; but it is our position
that this is the best agreement that can be
worked out, and, as near as we can determine,
gives Colorado more protection than an unknown
interpretation of the Compact would.

There has also been a fear that the
Navajo Indians, or any Indians, can call upon
stored water to satisfy those Indian rights.
I do not believe that is a fact. I'm sure
that ~tr. Moses, our Attorney, agrees with me
in that conclusion. We can never conceive of
an inst~nce where the Indians can call upon
stored water to which they would never have
been entitled under any theory so far advanced
by any federal agency. The Winters Doctrine
has not advanced such a theory. We can never
consider an instance in which Indians could
come ihto Colorado, for example, and say 'We're
low down here. We want part of the Animas
storage or part of the Jackson Gulch or Pine
River'. We think that's impossible. The peo-
ple under those projects have already entered