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32 l Q651 possible, and we reco~nized that a Compact must provide so~e protection for existing uses to be politically acceptable, even if litigation would not protect those uses. The State supplied Stetson Engineers with estimates of existing uses by watershed, and in September 1982, Stetson Engineers and various experts from the State travelled along the tributaries to verify actual uses on each tributary system. When the State Commission agreed to tribal water marketing authority in October 1982, the negotiating team then agreed to protect all existing uses on those tributaries. At the Denver ~eeting in February 1983, the tribal negotiating team agreed also to protect, in addition to existing uses, permits issued by the State on the tributaries that have not yet become an actual use of water. The basic structure of Article IV of the 1983 Compact generally survived in the present Compact. The protected existino state law uses are almost all for irrigation. About 19,500 acres in all are irrigated on a regular basis (full-service irrigation) in these watersheds. About 13,000 additional acres are served by "water spreading" during periods of high stream flow, usually during the early spring. The regular or "full service" irrigation diverts about 70,000 acre-fept and consumes about 35,000 acre-feet a year. ~he water spreading, or "partial service irrigation" consumes about 6,000 acre-feet annually. Most of the "full service" irrigation is done from ground water, not surface flow. Of the 19,500 acres served by full service irrigation, about 12,000 acres are irrigated by ground water pumping. Use of ground water is especially prevalent in the Porcupine Creek and Big Muddy Creek watersheds, where a total of about 10,000 acres (mostly outside the Reser"i'.tion) are irrigated by ground water. In all, about 50 percent of the diversions authorized by state law and protected by the Compact are from ground water. Much of this is probably pumped from a ground water b~3in that is an ancestral channel of the Missouri River. J (Footnote Continued) subordination ultimately provided in Article IV. The negotiating team made it clear that if the State wished to retain that degree of protection, the Tribes must retain the basic advantages provided to them in the 1983 Compact. (Tr. 92-94, 122). 53Little is known about this ground water source. It may or may not be connected hydrologically to the Big Muddy Creek or the present Missouri River.