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<br />002193 <br /> <br />ARIZONA v. CALIFORNIA. <br /> <br />19 <br /> <br />in reality her share of the first 7,500,000 acre-feet of Lower <br />Basin water, is on "water of and from the Colorado River," <br />not of and from the "Colorado River System." But more <br />importantly, the negotiations among the States and the <br />congressional debates leading to the passage of the Project <br />Act clearly show that the language used by Congress in the <br />Act was meant to refer to mainstream waters only. Inclu- <br />sion of the tributaries in the Compact was natural in view <br />of the upper States' strong feeling that the Lower Basin <br />tributaries should be made to share the burden of any ob- <br />ligation to deliver water to Mexico which a future treaty <br />might impose. But when it came to an apportionment <br />among the Lower Basin States, the Gila, by far the most <br />important Lower Basin tributary, would not logically be <br />included, since Arizona alone of the States could effec- <br />tively use that river.'o Therefore, with minor exceptions, <br />the proposals and counterproposals over the years, cul- <br />minating in the Project Act, consistently provided for <br />division of the mainstream only, reserving the tributaries <br />to each State's exclusive use. <br />The most important negotiations among the States, <br />which in fact formed the basis of the debates leading to <br />passage of the Act, took place in 1927 when the Governors <br />of the seven basin States met at Denver in an effort to <br />work out an allocation of the Lower Basin waters accept- <br />able to Arizona, California, and Nevada. Arizona and <br />California made proposals," both of which suggested giv- <br />ing Nevada 300,000 acre-feet out of the mainstr~am of the <br />Colorado River and reserving to each State the exclusive <br />use of her own tributaries. Arizona proposed that all <br />remaining mainstream water be divided equally between <br /> <br />'0 Not only does.the Gila enter the Colorado almost at the Mexican <br />border, but also in dry seasons it virtually evaporates before reaching <br />the Colorado. <br />"See 69 Congo Rec. 9454 (1928). <br />