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<br />..JJO"':t <br /> <br />significantly for several hundred thousands <br />of years. Weather changes very slowly. So <br />this condition probably existed for the last <br />several hundred thousands of years. Forty- <br />five years is a short time comparatively but <br />it is still a long time for a study. The <br />highest year is 1921 with 23 million acre- <br />feet. The lowest year occurred in 1934, as <br />I recall, of a little over 5 million acre-feet. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />,--,j"!; <br /> <br />In reconstructing what would have hap- <br />pended had we had reservoir storage on the <br />river, it was easy to determine that the <br />Upper Basin could never get more than 6,200,000 <br />acre-feet of water, not 7~ million as the com- <br />pact prescribes. The actual flow of the <br />river, the average during this period, is <br />only l4 million acre-feet. Yet the compact <br />commissioners divided up l5 million acre-feet <br />and they knew full well that there would be <br />some additional water allocated the Republic <br />of Mexico. Why anybody in the Upper Basin <br />agreed to this division, I don't know. It <br />is almost inconceivable. Had they even <br />agreed to divide the water at Lee Ferry on a <br />50-50 basis, we would have been in pretty <br />good shape today. However, we were burdened <br />with that provision which guaranteed to the <br />Lower Basin 75 million acre-feet in every <br />consecutive ten-year period. <br /> <br />""~. I~"" <br /> <br />Having before us the historic flow of <br />the river and the compact provisions, we. <br />could easily determine that the only water <br />left to the Upper Basin was below this lower <br />green line (again pointing to the chart) of <br />6.2 million acre-feet. Between the two green <br />lines is the 75 million acre-feet which is <br />delivered to the Lower Basin at Lee Ferry. 1 <br />This delivery is the first call on the river <br />after the Mexican Treaty. Then we tried to <br />determine what would happen to us if we did <br />not have reservoir storage. This black area <br />just above the red and between the green lines <br />is reservoir evaporation from our three major <br />reservoirs. It amounts to 700,000 acre-feet <br />