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<br />.. <br /> <br />UJ18J3 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Negotiators appointed by the governors of the states <br /> <br /> <br />met in Washington in January 1922 with a representative of the <br /> <br /> <br />United States, Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, whom they <br /> <br />promptly elected chairman of the Colorado River Commission. <br /> <br /> <br />The original purpose of the Commission was to apportion the <br /> <br /> <br />waters of the river among the seven states, but demands of the <br /> <br /> <br />seven states so far exceeded even the optimistic estimates of <br /> <br />water supply furnished by the United States Reclamation Service, <br />that the enterprise almost fell apart in the first week of <br /> <br />negotiations. <br />The Compact which resulted, after months of public <br /> <br />hearings, exchanges of views, and after the November elections <br /> <br />brought temporary tranquillity to some of the more agitated <br /> <br /> <br />spirits, was a compromise.lI It was one of many compromises <br /> <br /> <br />along the way. Instead of dividing the rights seven ways, <br /> <br />among seven states, the negotiators divided what they <br /> <br /> <br />optimistically assumed to be about 75 per cent of the Colorado <br /> <br /> <br />River system's water supply between the upper and the lower <br /> <br /> <br />basins. They defined the two basins with reference to the <br /> <br />drainage divide at Lee Ferry, a point on the main stream north <br /> <br />of the Grand canyon and a few miles south of the Arizona-Utah <br /> <br />11 The text of the Colorado River Compact is appendix A <br />attached, as it appears in Wilbur and Ely, Hoover Dam Documents <br />(H.R. Doc. No. 7l7, 80th Cong., ~a: Sess. (19L~u) at A17i" The <br />principal operative provisions are found in Article II and <br />Article VIII. They should be read together with the definitions <br />in Article II. <br /> <br />15. <br />