WSP03323

• File Number: 8112.600
• Description: Arkansas White Red Basins Interagency Committee - AWRBIAC
• Basin: Arkansas
• Water Division: 2
• Date: 1/1/1992
• Author: AWRBIAC
• Title: AWRBIAC Annual Report 1990 - 1991
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Annual Report

S-Minute Activity Report
127th Meeting of AWRBIAC
Page 3

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There has been significant interest in reorganization and consolidation among the
environmental agencies following an interim study by the State House of Representatives.
However, the shortened legislative session mandated in a statewide referendum last year has
worked against any meaningful reform this Session. (The Constitutional amendment passed
by state voters required that legislators meet for no more than 90 days in regular session and
adjourn no later than 5:00 p.m. on May 31 of each year.)

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Interstate Comnaet News

Oklahoma and Texas claimed New Mexico violated compact terms regarding the amount
of water storage capacity aJlowed to New Mexico, due to New Mexico enlarging Ute Dam
on the Canadian River near Tucumcari, in 1984. After the problem could not be resolved
at several compact meetings, Oklahoma and Texas sued New Mexico in April 1987. The
Ute Dam case was studied by Jerome C. Muys, appointed Special Master by the U,S.
Supreme Court, who issued a 11S-page report in 1990. The Special Master concluded that
New Mexico had violated the Compact and recommended a decree to order the matter sent
back to the Compact Commission to try to determine whether and to what extent water may
be stored in the desilting pool portion of the sediment pool without chargeability as
conservation storage. The U.S. Supreme Court then heard oral arguments from Oklahoma
and other litigants on April 16, 1991. A final decision is expected by July.

The Annual meeting of the Red River Compact was held at the offices of the Oklahoma
Water Resources Board on April 30, 1991. Attending were commissioners from Arkansas,
Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Oklahoma has two new commissioners--Patty Eaton, the
new Executive Director of the OWRB, who chaired the meeting, and Ken Fergeson, who
was appointed by the Governor on December 17, 1991. The next meeting will be held in
Texas in 1992.

The Kansas-Oklahoma Compact meeting wiJl be held at Shangri-la Lodge on Grand Lake
in northeastern Oklahoma on September 24, 1991, and the Arkansas-Oklahoma Compact
meeting wiJl be held September 25, 1991, at the same location.

State Q,f Oklahoma SUTJreme Court O,pinion
R~ardinr RiTJarWn. Rirhts

The Oklahoma Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of Oklahoma's 28-year
old stream water appropriation law remains umesolved. The first opinion in the case, issued
in 1987, said three things: (1) that the Board must consider groundwater rights held by an
applicant for a stream water right, (2) that applicants who propose to use the water out of
basin of origin may lose their rights later to the extent uses in the basin increase, and (3)
common law riparian rights to a reasonable use must be protected when the Board considers
applications for appropriation permits. The OWRB asked for a rehearing of that opinion.