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<br />. <br /> <br />~. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Colorado River Compact Symposium <br />James S. Lochhead <br />Page 18 <br /> <br />indicates that a ten-year period gave a fair and <br />reasonably accurate average of the flow of the river, <br />taking both high and low cycles, and that a ten-year <br />period would reach into both cycles and largely include <br />them, and that as the future development in both the <br />upper and lower basin[s] must rely upon storage, the <br />storage facilities would care for the rise and fall. <br /> <br />* * * <br /> <br />[A]ny student of the river must realize that the future <br />development in both areas will be that predicated upon <br />the construction of reservoirs. Nevertheless, we have <br />no power to say by whom these reservoirs shall be <br />constructed, in what localities or when they shall be <br />constructed. That should be left free to both <br />communities to use such instrumentalities as may be at <br />hand, and the division of the water should be so made <br />that either area may build, or neglect to build, of its <br />own notion, and as it may believe construction or lack <br />of construction is at anyone time justified. <br /> <br />* * * <br /> <br />In truth, the best possible safeguard for the lower <br />states to insure a delivery at Lee'S Ferry within <br />reasonable inclusive figures from year to year would be <br />the immediate d&velopment of the reservoir storage in <br />the upper area. <br /> <br />Ultimately, of course, the commissioners arrived at a <br />delivery obligation by the Upper Basin that was predicated <br />on a ten-year running average and that did not contemplate <br />anyone-year minimum delivery obligation. Clearly, the <br />unstated basis for this understanding was the assumption <br />that Congress would at some point approve the comprehensive <br />development of regulatory storage throughout the entire <br />basin. <br /> <br />Immediately after the Compact was negotiated, and before it <br />was ratified by all the states, the Upper Basin interests <br />pursued the idea of comprehensive storage development. They <br />secured in the 1928 Boulder Canyon project Act a provision <br />authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to: <br /> <br />. make investigation and public reports of the <br />feasibility of projects for irrigation, generation of <br />electric power, and other purposes in the States of <br />Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming <br />for the purpose of making such information available to <br /> <br />35 <br /> <br />13th Meeting of the Compact Commission, Santa Fe, New <br />Mexico, November 13, 1922. <br />