BOARD01303

• Board Meeting Date: 1/14/1960
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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the La Plata to the downstream tributaries,
and seriously interfere with, and in many years
take all the water of those streams. ,

Remember again that the Navajo Reservoir
was built as a main stem project although no
benefit accrues whatsoever to the other states
by virtue of its construction. Nevertheless,
New Mexico was given about two full years of the
storage project revenues to build this Navajo
Dam. Actually it is strictly a 100% New Mexico
project. In it New Mexico can utilize holdover
storage. But under the terms of the Upper Colo-
rado River Compact, for some reason unknown to
us at the present cime, we are required to make
annual deliveries into the State of New Mexico
for its allocation based upon the flow of the en-
tire Colorado River. In many years the San Juan
River is very low; it has probably the shortest
flow supply in western Colorado and in those years
we may have a very high flow, and often do have a
high flow in the Colorado River. So we have to
satisfy New Mexico based upon the entire flow of
the Colorado River and that in some years, re-
quires the entire flow of the San Juan basin to
make up the lli% allocated to the State of New
Mexico. This is annual demand. If we deliver
to New Mexico twice as much water as they need
or are entitled to in any year, we get no credit
for it. If we have a shortage the next year, we
have to make up the full water supply. Yet they
have a reservoir which we have helped build in
which they can get holdover.

Consequently, we felt that the first obliga-
tion of that reservoir should be to satisfy down-
stream requirements, before Colorado is called
upon to release water from downstream tributaries.
So the amendment we put in here is 'THAT THE
SECRETARY SHALL SO OPERATE THE PROJECT AND NAVAJO
RESERVOIR THAT THE WATERS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER
ENTERING OR STORED IN NAVAJO RESERVOIR SHALL BE
FIRST UTILIZED TO SATISFY EXISTING OR FUTURE DOWN-
STREAM WATER REQUIREMENTS IN THE STATE OF NEW
MEXICO WHICH WOULD OTHERWISE CONSTITUTE DEMANDS OR
OBLIGATIONS AGAINST THE STATE OF COLORADO UNDER THE
TERMS OF THE UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN COMPACT FOR
THE RELEASE OF WATERS ORIGINATING IN COLORADO ON
TRIBUTARY STREAMS ENTERING THE SAN JUAN RIVER BELOW
NAVAJO DAM~ IN EXCESS OF THOSE DEMANDS AND OBLIGA-
TIONS CREATED BY THE LA PLATA RIVER COMPACT'. We
put the further provision in 'AND PROVIDED FURTHER~
THAT THE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR SHALL SO OPERATL
THE PROJECT THAT THE DIVERSIONS FOR INDIAN LANDS
SHALL NOT EXCEED 508,000 ACRE-FEET OF WATER IN ANY

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