WSP01185

• File Number: 8282.500.20.A
• Description: Colorado River Operations
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 8/15/1986
• Author: UCRC
• Title: Draft - Upper Colorado River Commission Action Related to Operation of the Colorado River Reservoir System
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

the apportionments to the Lower Basin provided for in Article III (a) and (b)

of the Colorado River Compact and the entire Mexican Treaty delivery."

(Letter of January 16, 1986 to the Honorable Donald Paul Hodel, Secretary of

the Department of the Interior, from Gerald R. Zimmerman, Executive Director

of the Upper Colorado River Commission.)

Discussion:

The need for an operating criteria was apparent even before congres-

sional authorization of the Upper Basin storage projects. In 1923 Herbert

Hoover, Chairman, Colorado River Commission, responded to one of a series of

questions on the Colorado River Compact as follows:

Question 14: Can paragraph (d) of Article III be construed to
mean that the States of the upper division may withhold all except
75,000,000 acre-feet of water within any period of 10 years and thus
not only secure the amount to which they are entitled under the
apportionment made in paragraph (a) but also the entire unappor-
tioned surplus waters of the Colorado River?

No. Paragraph (a) of Article III apportions to the Upper
Basin 7,500,000 acre-feet per annum. Paragraph (c) of Article III
provides that the States of the upper division shall not withhold
water that cannot be beneficially used. Paragraphs (f) and (g) of
this article specifically leave to further apportionment water now
unapportioned. There is, therefore, no possibility of construing
paragraph (d) of this article as suggested. (Extension of remarks
of Honorable Carl Hayden in House of Representatives Tuesday,
January 30, 1923 Congressional Record, beginning on page 2710.)

The Upper Colorado River Commission responded to the same question in a

September 21, 1959 resolution, which states in part:

The states of the upper division have the right to have
impounded in Glen Canyon Reservoir all the waters of the Colorado
River flowing into it, except waters required by the Colorado River
Compact to pass Lee Ferry. It is the right and duty of the Upper
Colorado River Commission to insist that the agencies of the United
States which perform the ministerial duty of administration of Glen
Canyon Reservoir should fill it to capacity as expeditiously as the
flow of the river will permit without infringement on the rights of
upstream or downstream users as recognized or established by the
Colorado River Compact.

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