OCR Text |
Show 235 be expected that it would have suggested that priority of appropriation was still to govern in circumstances in which it was not inconsistent with Section 6. Moreover, the Project Act approved the Colorado River Compact, and thus the Compact provides the background for the enactment of the Project Act. The Compact treats the Upper and Lower Basins on a parity one to the other in regard to the division of water; priority of appropriation is not an operative factor under the Compact. Thus subdivisions (a) and (b) of Article III apportion consumptive use of water to each Basin in fixed quantities with the manifest intention that priority of appropriation as between Basins shall be irrelevant to the apportionment. It is true that the greater development in the Lower Basin may have been taken into account when that Basin was apportioned an extra million acre-feet, but, the division having been made, each Basin'sapportionment is, under the Compact, of the same quality, regardless of priority of appropriation. This is made clear by Article III(c) which provides that, if there is not enough water in excess of the III (a) and (b) apportionment to fulfill United States treaty obligations to Mexico, "then the burden of such deficiency shall be equally borne by the Upper Basin and the Lower Basin . . . ." The respective Basins do not bear the loss of water in such a period of short supply on the basis of priority of appropriation, but on the basis of parity. As I have pointed out, the second paragraph of Section 4(a) gives advance approval to a compact among Arizona, California and Nevada containing an allocation of water which was substantially effectuated by the contractual allocation established by the Secretary. Under this proposed compact, each state's apportionment would be of equal quality, precisely like the inter-basin apportionment in the Colorado River Compact. Surely Congress did not intend |
Source |
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 |