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Show 22 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Two: In a state of nature, the Gila River in Arizona was a "wasting" tributary of the Colorado. Especially in the last one hundred miles before it joined the main Colorado its bed was wide, sandy, flat, and subject to the intense heat of the desert. The Bureau of Reclamation estimated that in a state of nature the Gila emptied approximately 1,100,000 acre-feet of water into the Colorado per year. The Gila was a main tributary, inseparable from the Colorado system, and it emptied into the main stream a few miles above the Mexican border. Water from the Gila was used chiefly in the Phoenix area, and there about 2,300,000 acre-feet of water were taken from it each year, and used up - beneficially consumed. The difference between these figures, about 1,200,000 acre-feet, was, before development of the Phoenix area, lost by evaporation, deep seepage and other causes, as the Gila flowed in its hot bed towards its junction with the Colorado. The words "beneficial consumptive use," as they were used in the Compact, were important in this phase of the controversy, as the Compact apportioned water for "exclusive beneficial consumptive use." Arizona contended that it should be charged for only 1,000,000 acre-feet of the Gila River water - the amount that it was estimated emptied into the Colorado from the Gila in a state of nature, that is, before develop- ment of irrigation in the Phoenix area and other places along the stream. California contended that Arizona actually took, used and "beneficially consumed" 2,300,000 acre-feet of water from the Gila, and therefore should be charged with using that amount. California did not question Arizona's right to use this water. |
