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Show 188 Article III" of the Compact, which refers to the flow at Lee Ferry. The support for interpreting III (a) to mean III(d) is (1) that the 7.5 million acre-feet per annum, which is the figure found in Article III (a), is one-tenth of the 75 million acre-feet mentioned in Article III(d), and (2) that the Upper Basin governors, in a meeting held in Denver in the summer of 1927, recommended a division of III (d) water at Lee Ferry, among Arizona, California and Nevada. While there is some basis for this interpretation of Section 4(a), I have after careful reflection rejected it, for it requires that "Article III (a)" be interpreted to mean "Article III(d)," and I do not believe there is sufficient support for rewriting the statutory language in this manner. As I have pointed out before, subdivisions (a) and (d) of Article III are not correlative despite the coincidence that the number mentioned in (d) happens to be ten times the number mentioned in (a). See page 144, supra. Moreover, the legislative history tends to demonstrate that Congress did not intend Article III (a) to mean Article III(d). It is true that the Upper Basin governors recommended a division of water at Lee Ferry in the following language: "1. Of the average annual delivery of water to be provided by the States of the upper division at Lees [sic] Ferry under the terms of the Colorado River compact: (a) To the State of Nevada, 300,000 acre-feet, (b) To the State of Arizona, 3,000,000 acre-feet, (c) To the State of California, 4,200,000 acre-feet."49 The recommendations of the governors' conference designated a body of water out of which the allocation would be made by reference to the contemplated deliveries 4970 Cong. Rec. 172 (1928), Ariz. Legis. Hist. p. 34. |
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Original Report: State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California |