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<br />complexity of interstate issues on the Colorado River.24 Within a few <br />months, Congress approved the Mondell Bill IHouse leader Frank Mondell <br />was from Wyoming), authorizing the states to enter into a Colorado River <br />Compact among themselves and with the concurrence of the United States. <br />Carpenter drafted the language on which the bill was based. <br />Predictably, it authorized the interested states Uta equitably apportion <br />among them the waters of the Colorado River and its tributaries.u The <br />legislation specified a time limit of January I, 1923, for the <br />commission to complete its work.25 By statute, therefore, Congress <br />Uestablished the principle of equitable apportionment. . by compact <br />as the" federal policy" on interstate streams. 26 President Harding <br />appointed Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover as the federal <br />representative. It was now up to the Colorado River Commission to put <br />this new policy into effect. <br />In simplified terms, the Colorado River Compact, signed by <br />representatives of all seven states and approved by Hoover in Santa Fe <br />on November 24, 1922, divided the Colorado River equally between four <br />upper basin states (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico) and three <br />lower basin states (Arizona, California and Nevada). When ratified by <br />Congress and the state legislatures,27 each basin could claim a <br />perpetual right to 7.5 million acre-feet of water per year. Measurement <br />was to be calculated in such a way that the upper basin would be in <br />default only if it failed to pass 75 million acre-feet by Lee's Ferry to <br />the lower basin over a ten-year period. An extra one million acre-feet <br />was awarded to the lower basin because of Arizona's nearly exclusive <br />claims to the Gila River. Other compact articles stipulated that <br />domestic and agricultural uses would have priority over power and <br />navigation; that further equitable apportionment could be made after <br />October I, 1963, if either basin had exceeded its 7.5 million acre-feet; <br />that Mexico's possible rights would be considered later in a separate <br />treaty, the burden of which would be borne equally by both basins; and <br />that nothing in the compact should be construed as affecting the <br />obligations of the United States to America's Indian tribes. <br /> <br />11 <br />