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<br />" .."000216 <br /> <br />shall be excluded in determining the amount of curtailment to be made. ; <br /> <br />With respect to the claimed preferred status of Indian rights, <br /> <br /> <br />the following statement was made by Mr. Warner, one of the attorneys <br /> <br />for the United States in the pending case of Arizona vs. California, <br />in the United States Supreme Court, at San Francisco, on August 12, <br /> <br />1957: <br /> <br />"The reservation (of water) is the act (of the <br />United States) by which the unappropriated waters <br />involved are set apart for the purposes of the <br />reservation and insulated against subsequent appro- <br />priations by members of the public (under applicable <br />state or territorial laws)." <br /> <br />The Navajo Indian Reservation was established by Treaty on <br />June 1, 1868. If the above contention of the United States, <br />in Arizona vs. California, is upheld by the Supreme Court as <br />a part of the "Law of the River", the result would be this, <br />among others: <br />(a) Rights of the Navajo Indians would be supplied as <br />senior to and preferred over all rights to the use of the <br />water of the affected streams which vested after June 1, 1868. <br /> <br />(b) In the low runoff period of years such as the one <br />ending with water year 1956, all rights on the affected <br />streams, either in New Mexico or Colorado, which became <br />vested after June 1, 1868, would be involved to the extent <br />necessary to make up any shortage which in that year, or any <br />other similar year, would have been experienced by the Navajo <br />Project. <br /> <br />An agreement with the Navajo Indian Tribal Council contem- <br /> <br />plates the sharing in New Mexico of streamflow and reservoir water <br /> <br />between the Navajo Project and other new uses in years of low runoff. <br /> <br />It would appear on the surface that if this sharing prin- <br />ciple should result in consumptive use by new projects in New Mexico <br />other than the Navajo Project in such years, then under the compact <br />new uses in Colorado also would be entitled to some consumptive use. <br /> <br />In this case, curtailment of new Colorado uses would be such that <br /> <br /> <br />their shortages would approach the same percentages as those indi- <br /> <br /> <br />cated in the analyses under Criteria No, 1 and No.2.. <br /> <br />-12- <br /> <br />L ~ ~ <br /> <br />..,~ <br /> <br />_ ~l,;.' __ <br /> <br />;~-._- ..:ii,'_ <br /> <br />f ~ <br />l:/~ <br />-~_. .,.~ <br />