WSP00913 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

. . ~ o -1 00 . . . . . . . . . . The obligation to Mexico is becoming primarily a matter of Federal 'b'l't 8 responsl 11 y. Interregional Allocation and Management. The 1972 Colorado River Compact. Sectional rivalry caused the drainage basin of the Colorado River System to be divided into two allocation areas, the Upper Basin (composed of the "upper division" states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, as well as a portion of Arizona) and the Lower Basin (composed of the "lower division" states of Arizona, California and Nevada). In order to prevent down-river users from acquiring a dispro- portionate share of the water rights, users in areas of origin have come to insist that rights to some of the water flow be reserved for their future benefit.9 In essence, that was what the Basin States achieved when Congressional consent to the 1922 Colorado River Compact became effective in 1929. 10 The compact, as adopted by Congress, purported to give each basin a perpetual right to the "exclusive beneficial use of 7, 500, 000 acre- feet of water per annum. . . . ,,11 Such an equal division may never occur, however, because the Lower Basin negotiators hedged their bet. Although the river had produced an average flow for the two preceding decades that would have comfortably accommodated 7.5 m. a. f. in beneficial consumptive uses annually for each half of the basin, the hydrological risk remained that a dryer cycle might someday occur, preventing the river from supporting that level of use throughout the basin. Who should 3