WSP02650

• File Number: 8200.700
• Description: Law of the River
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 1/1/1980
• Author: Carlson and Boles
• Title: Chapter 21 Contrary Biews of the Law of the Colorado River: An Examination of Rivalries Between the Upper and Lower Basins
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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~ 21.03[2]

MINERAL LAW INSTITUTE

21-22

fines of its shrunken apportionment.81

The Upper Basin has not to date, however, experienced im-
mediate hardships from this limit, for the reason that it has
yet to try to exploit its full 7.5 m.a.f. apportionment. Devel-
opment of water uses in the Upper Basin has been "unex-
pectedly slow." 82 The Bureau of Reclamation estimated Up-
per Basin consumptive uses in 1981 at 3.840 m.aJ., including
686,000 acre-feet evaporative losses, and 713,000 acre-feet of
transbas.in diversions in Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.83

However, the projected Upper Basin limits may have al-
ready created somewhat subtle repercussions and they are
virtually certain to produce direct constraints in the future.
As the Westwide Study Report on Critical Water Problems
Facing the Eleven Western States cautioned:

Although the water supply of the river is adequate to meet
quantitative needs today and in the years immediately
ahead, this does not mean that there are no current prob-
lems related to water shortage. To the contrary there are
and they are severe. If the Upper Basin States are to de-
velop their resources at a rate commensurate with their
expressed aspirations it is a certainty that shortages will
develop within a time frame that directly affects decisions
which need to be made today. Most resource development
undertakings, be they for agriculture, industry, or other
purposes, require an assured water supply for at least 40
years to justify making initial investments. The fact that
there is no actual shortage of water today nor will there be
in the immediate future is of little comfort to those inter-
ests whose future depends upon an assured water supply
for the next 40-50 years.84

The Interior Department's Report on Water for Energy in
the Upper Colorado 'River Basin projected that before the
year 2000, a 5.8 m.a.f. per annum limit would curtail some

81 lei at 116.

82 Environmental Defense Fund. v. Costle, 657 F.2d 275, 293 (D.C. Cir. 1981).
8J U.S. Department of Interior, Eleventh Annual Report, Operation of the Colo.
rado River Basin 1981 at 24 (1982),
84 Wests ide Stu.dy Report, supra note 3, at 153.