| OCR Text |
APPENDIX J 293 Article VIII provided that "present perfected rights to the beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River system are un- impaired by this Compact." Article XI provided that the Compact should become binding when ratified by the legislatures of all seven states and when Congress should give its consent. Ratification by Six States,, Rejection by Arizona In 1923 all states but Arizona ratified. Her legislature re- jected the compact, after one house or the other had adopted reservations excluding the Gila River and subjecting all power development to a five-dollar per horsepower royalty. Six-State Ratification In 1925, at the suggestion of Colorado, the other six states ratified it again, as a six-state document, waiving seven-state ratification, and presented it to Congress in that form. The Boulder Canyon Project Act The Boulder Canyon Project Act, after three unsuccessful bills, was enacted in December 1928, but Section 4 (a) pro- vided that it should not take effect unless, at the end of six months, the President should proclaim that the Colorado River Compact had been ratified by seven states, or, failing that, had been ratified by six states, including California, and, in the latter event, California's legislature had enacted a statute in terms prescribed by Congress limiting California's rights in the Colorado River. The Upper Basin, in other words, had demanded in 1922 a seven-state compact as the price for the construction of Hoover Dam. Failing to get Arizona's ratification, they de- manded (and got) a second price from California: the enact- ment of the Limitation Act, to avoid the possibility that Cali- fornia and Nevada might use all the water apportioned to the Lower Basin, and that Arizona would "raid the river" outside the Compact, i.e., establish priorities against slower Upper Basin development. Project Act Cuts across Compact The Boulder Canyon Project Act, in granting consent to a six-state Compact, cut across the seven-state Compact in several particulars. |
