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. ~'. N .::.. ~>J . . PART I INTRODUCTION below the confluence of the Paria River), apportioned to each basin 7.5 million acre-feet annually, and contains provisions governing expor- tation and obligations to Indian Tribes. Further, the Mexican Treaty of 1944 obligates the United States to deliver to Mexico 1.5 million acre- feet of Colorado River water annually. The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948 further appor- tioned Colorado River water, allocating to Arizona 50,000 acre-feet annually, with the remaining' water allocated to Upper Basin States as follows: Colorado, 51.75 percent; New Mexico, 11.25 percent; Utah, 23 percent; and Wyoming, 14 percent. The compact permitted the authoriza- tion of Federal projects above Lee Ferry. States of the Lower Basin, however, did not agree to a compact for the apportionment of waters in the Lower Colorado River Basin; accordingly, a Supreme Court decree (Arizona vs. California et al.) in 1964 allocated use of the main stream of the river below Lee Ferry among California, Nevada, and Arizona and of the Gila River between the States of Arizona and New Mexico. The decree also permitted Federal water projects and the development of Indian tribal lands to proceed. 2. Water Quality Although a number of water quality related legislative actions have been taken on the State and Federal levels, four Federal acts are of special significance to the Colorado River Basin--the Water Quality Act of 1965 and related amendments, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Public Law 92-500), the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act of 1974, and the Clean Water Act of 1977. Also central to water quality issues are agreements with Mexico on Colorado River system waters entering that country. The first of these, the Water Quality Act of 1965 (Public Law 89-234), amended the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and established a Federal Water Pollution Control Administration (now EPA). Among other provisions) it required States to adopt water quality criteria for interstate waters inside their boundaries. The seven Basin States initially developed water quality standards which did not include numeric salinity criteria for the Colorado River, primarily because of technical constraints. In 1972, the States sgreed to a policy which called for the maintenance of salinity concentrations in the Lower Colorado River system at or below existing levels, while the Upper Basin States con- tinued to develop their compact-apportioned waters. The States sug- gested that Reclamation should have primary responsibility for investi- gating, planning, and implementing the proposed Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program with the assistance of the Federal Office of Saline Water and EPA. The late enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendment of 1972 affected salinity control in that the legislation was interpreted by EPA to require numerical standards for salinity in the Colorado River. In response, the Basin States founded the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum (Forum) to develop numeric salinity 4