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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Compact, and was justified when the Supreme Court held in 1922 <br />that priority of appropriations controlled over State lines <br />(Wyoming v. Colorado, 259, U.S. 419). Congress consented to the <br />negotiations in 1921 and ther to the resulting 1922 Compact in <br />the Boulder Canyon project Act of 1928 (45 Stat. 1057). <br /> <br />The Compact apportioned the flow of the Colorado and its <br />tributaries between the Upper Division States (Wyoming, Colorado, <br />Utah, and New Mexico) and the Lower Division States (California, <br />Arizona, and Nevada) and set the boundary at Lee Ferry in Arizona <br />(about one mile below the paria River and 17 miles below Glen <br />Canyon Dam). Each Basin was apportioned 7.5 million acre feet <br />and the Lower Basin was permitted an additional 1 million acre <br />feet. <br /> <br />The Boulder Canyon Project Act, in section 19, authorized the <br />seven States to enter into negotiations, consistent with the <br />Compact, for the development and use of the Colorado. The Upper <br />Basin States negotiated a Compact in 1948 which was consented to <br />by Congress in 1949 (63 Stat. 31). The Lower Basin States were <br />unable to reach an agreement, and eventually Arizona initiated <br />litigation before the Supreme Court which resulted in a decision <br />in 1963 (Arizona v. California, 376 U.S. 340) holding, in part, <br />that in the absence of a negotiated ag"eement between the three <br />Lower Basin States, Congress had appor:ioned the waters of the <br />mainstream of the Colorado in the Lcwer Basin among the three <br />States under the Boulder Canyon Projec: Act. <br /> <br />Among the other significant elements of the Law of the River are <br />the Mexican Treaty of 1944, which guaranteed delivery of 1.5 <br />million acre feet to Mexico, and the history of salinity concerns <br />with that delivery, leading to the Colorado River Basin Salinity <br />Control Act in 1974 (88 Stat. 266). The Boulder Canyon Project <br />Adjus~ent Act of 1940 (54 Stat. 774) revised the power <br />. reqtiirements under the original Act. <br /> <br />Although the 1922 Colorado River Compact allocated to the Upper <br />Basin 7.5 maf of consumptive use annually from the Colorado River <br />System, current Bureau of Reclamation interpretation of actual <br />system hydrology and operations show only approximately 6 maf of <br />consumptive use to actually be available, assuming the Upper <br />Basin supplies one-half of the Mexican Treaty delivery <br />obligation. Although the Upper Basin disagrees with this <br />interpretation, it illustrates the face that the upper Basin may <br />be stuck with considerably less than it bargained for in 1922. <br />Nevertheless, the Upper aasin does nQ1 desire to renegotiate that <br />or any other compact. The Upper Basin will, however, vigorouSly <br />protect its entitlements, and its righ: to develop in the future, <br />because it does not enjoy the same level of certainty enjoyed by <br />the Lower Division states in the allocations made to those states <br />in the Boulder Canyon Project Act (4.4 maf/yr to California, 2.8 <br />maf/yr to Arizona, and 0.3 maf/yr to Nevada) . <br /> <br />2 <br /> <br />000402 <br />