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<br />relationships that existed prior to the Compact negotiations. By specifying the delivery or <br />outflow requirements for given inflows, the delivery schedules limit the allowable consumption in <br />their respective portions of the basin. Since the schedules are based on the inflow-outflow <br />relationships that existed prior to the Compact negotiations, the consumption that was occurring <br />at that time is recognized and provided for. In addition, the Compact provides a system of <br />accounting whereby departures between the scheduled and actual annual deliveries are set up <br />as credits or debits. Credits occur when the actual deliveries are more than the scheduled <br />deliveries and debits occur when they are less. The Compact thusly recognized that departures <br />could result from natural causes or be man-induced. Natural causes could include variations in <br />precipitation on the valley floor, uncharacteristically high or low runoff from the foothills areas <br />and uncharacteristically high depletion in years of high runoff that follow one or more years of <br />low runoff. Man-induced departures could include the development of drainage projects <br />probably causing credits to occur, and the storage of water in post-compact reservoirs probably <br />causing debits to occur. Credits and debits are allowed to accumulate subject to certain <br />limitations. <br /> <br />It was intended that Colorado and New Mexico would be able to increase their <br />consumptive use of water only through the development of drainage facilities and by the storage <br />of flood waters in new or "post-compact" reservoirs that would otherwise spill from Project <br />Storage. The concept for the storage was that Rio Grande Project water could be held in <br />storage in upstream reservoirs and would accumulate as debits to the states in which the <br />storage occurred and that upstream water could be stored in Project Storage and would <br />accumulate as credits to the state making the over-delivery. Debit water in post-compact <br />storage would become restriction-free to the extent it otherwise would have spilled from Project <br />Storage. Credit water in Project Storage would be considered to ride on top of the project water <br />and would spill before project water, Under certain circumstances, in years when the water in <br />Project Storage was relatively low, New Mexico and Texas could call for the release of this debit <br />water stored in post-compact reservoirs so that a "normal release" could be made from Project <br />Storage. A "normal release" from Project Storage is considered to be 790,000 acre-feet per <br />annum. <br /> <br />3 -10 <br /> <br />r'~ 7;.j <br /><.. ( ~ <br />