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, 21-25 LAW OF THE COLORADO RIVER ~ 21.03[2] ", mained to operate the project.95 The future will force restrictions on the Lower Basin, too. Now that the CAP is functioning, California already must scale back its delivery contracts with the Secretary of the In- terior from their former level of 5,362,000 acre-feet per an- num. When Upper Basin consumption approximates 5.8 m.a.f., the Lower Basin will receive no more than 8.25 m.a.f. at LeE:!'s Ferry and will be compelled to adjust its use. But unlike the Upper Basin, the shortage of Colorado River system water does not now threaten to reduce the Lower Basin's use below its Article IlI(a) and (b) apportion- ment. According to the current Compact orthodoxy,96 the burden of deficiencies is to be borne by the Upper Basin-al- though the Lower Basin must tighten its belt, it still retains its apportioned amounts. Indeed, if the Upper Basin is re- quired to provide half of the Mexican Treaty burden at Lee's Ferry, the Lower Basin would continue to avail itself of most of the water of its tributaries, thereby enjoying the use of substantial amounts of water in excess of the 8.5 m.a.f. ap- portionment. In contrast, the Upper Basin appears to be rel- egated to accepting "leftovers." Such inequity was not intended by the 1922 Compact. The principal purposes of the Compact were: (1) to allocate the water of the entire Colorado River system equally, with the exception of a 1.0 m.a.f. extra allowance for the Lower Basin to compensate for its tributaries; and (2) to assure each Basin the opportunity to develop its water uses up to the limits of its apportionment without interference from development in the other Basin. The current presupposition that the Upper Basin should be subordinated to the needs of the Lower vio- lates the principles upon which the law of the River was founded. 95 See Statement on the Operation of the San Juan-Chama Project, supra note 87; Memorandum from Felix Sparks, supra note 78, at 1-3. 96 See. e.g., Clyde, "Conflicts Between the Upper and Lower Basins on the Colo- rado River" in Resources Development: Fronti<!/'S for Research (Western Resources Conference, 1960).