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<br />u018u5 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />settlement in operation: interstate compact, such as the upper <br />, . _ 1/ _ <br />basin negotiated in 194~,~ and litigation, in which the lower <br />basin is now engaged. <br />Six states promptly ratified the Colorado River <br />Compact in 1923. The Arizona legislature refused to do so for <br />reasons about which it was very vocal. The principal reason <br />was the Gila. The Compact, in its definition of "Colorado River <br />system" includes the Gila River system whose waters had already <br />been appropriated and put to use in that state, and made the <br /> <br />lower basin accountable under the Compact for the use of the <br /> <br /> <br />Gila River system waters, estimated in those days at various <br /> <br /> <br />quantities all in excess of 2,000,000 acre-feet per annum.51 <br /> <br />!I The text of the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact is <br />found in Wilbur and Ely, Hoover Dam Documents, H.R. Doc. No. 717, <br />80th Cong., 2d Sess. (194~), p. Alb7. This compact, after <br />allotting ~O,OOO acre-feet to Arizona, allocates the balance <br />of the upper basin water as follows: to Colorado, 5l.75%; to <br />New Mexico, ll.25%; to Utah, 23%; to Wyoming, 14%. <br /> <br />51 "It may be of interest to know why the figures of <br />7,500,000 acre-feet for the upper basin and 8,500,000 acre-feet <br />for the lowercbasin were reached. It grew out of the proposition <br />made by the upper basin that there should be a fifty-fifty <br />division of rights to the use of the water of the river between <br />the upper and lower basins which should include the flow of the <br />Gila, and the insistence of Mr. Norviel, comnissioner from <br />Arizona, that no fifty-fifty basis of division would be equitable <br />unless the measurement should be at Lee's Ferry. As a compromise <br />the known requirements of the two basins were to be taken as the <br />basis of allotment with a definite quantity added as a margin of <br />safety. The known requirements of the upper basin being placed <br />at 6,500,000 acre-feet, a million acre-feet of margin gave the <br />upper basin an allotment of 7,500,000 acre-feet. The known <br />future requirements of the lower basin from the Colorado river <br />proper were estimated at 5,lOO,000 acre-feet. To this, when the <br />total possible consumptive use of 2,350,000 acre-feet from the <br />Gila and its tributaries are added, gives a total of 7,450,000 <br />acre-feet. In addition to this, upon the insistence of Mr. <br /> <br />[Footnote continued next page.] <br /> <br />l7. <br />