BOARD01417

• Board Meeting Date: 5/24/1999
• Description: WSP Section - Colorado River Basin Issues - Upper Colorado River Commissioner's Report - Historic and Continuing Interest of the Upper Basin in Preserving Secure Interstate Allocations
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

In response, the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act" authorized the construction of Curecanti, a
Flaming Gorge, Navajo and Glen Canyon Dams, together with various participating projects within the ,.,
Upper Division States. Congress authorized these reservoirs, so-called "holdover reservoirs," to regulate
and store water of the Colorado River System. The water could then be released to the Lower Basin in
satisfaction of the requirements of Article lII(d) of the Colorado River Compact." This storage thus
allows the Upper Division States fully to develop their River entitlements, without being subjected to a
"Compact Call" by the Lower Division States." Finally, the 1956 Act developed the Upper Basin Fund,
into which a portion of power revenues generated from the facilities are deposited, and then used to help
defray the costs of participating projects authorized by Congress."

In 1968, Congress and the states further affirmed the need for the coordinated interstate
operation of various facilities, through the adoption of the Colorado River Basin Project Act.35 The Act
assumed as a "national obligation" the provision of water to Mexico under the 1944 Mexican Water
Treaty.36 The Act also authorized the construction of the Central Arizona Project, but at a heavy price to
Arizona. The Act required the Secretary, in administrating any shortages among the Lower Division
States, to limit diversions from the Colorado River for the Central Arizona Project to assure the
availability of a total of 4.4 maf for use in California." In exchange for the authorization of the Central
Arizona Project, the Secretary of Interior was directed to proceed "as nearly as practicable" with the
construction of certain participating projects authorized in the 1956 Colorado River Storage Project Act,
so construction would start not later than the date of the first delivery of water from the Central Arizona
Project. 38

Finally, the Act provided several directives to the Secretary of the Interior in the coordinated
operation of the several federal reservoirs on the Colorado River. Congress directed the Secretary to
prepare a "consumptive uses and losses report" every five years, which would account for a breakdown e
of consumptive uses on a state-by-state basis.39 The Act requires the Secretary to propose criteria for the
coordinated long-range operation of the federal reservoirs, to review those criteria every five years, and
to report annually on the actual operations under the criteria for the preceding year and the projected

3Ip.L. 89-485, Stat.

"Article III(d) states that the states of the upper division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to
be depleted below an aggregate of75 million acre-feet in any ten year period.

"Report of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83rd Congress, 2nd Session, Report No. 1983,
July 26, 1954, Pages 1-3; Report of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 84th Congress, 1st
Session, Report No. 128, March 30,1955, Pages 1-4.

34p.L. 89,485, _ Stat. _, ~5.

35p.L. 90-537, 82 Stat. 885.

36ld., Section 202.

37ld., Section 301(b).

38ld., Section 501(b).

39Id., Section 601(b)(I).

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