OCR Text |
Show CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 3. Subordinates, as between the States, the use of water for the generation of power to uses for other purposes. 4. Imposes upon the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming the obligation net to cause the flow of the river to be depleted below 75,000,000 acre-feet for any 10-year period at Lee Ferry, which is a point on the river in Arizona just below the Arizona-Utah boundary line, and which is above the dam on the Colorado built under the authority of the Boulder Canyon Project Act. If the States never should be able to agree upon a division of the unapportioned surplus above referred to, then undoubtedly the determination of the division would go to the Supreme Court of the United States, where, under the compact, the principle which would be applied by the Court would be that of "equitable division", which might or might not yield the same results that would follow from an application of the competing principle of priority, more or less regardless of State lines. The compact makes no division of water between States, but only between basins, as above referred to, with Lee Ferry in Arizona as the dividing line on the river, and with all States or parts of States draining into the river above Lee Ferry as constituting the upper basin, and all States or parts of States draining into the river below Lee Ferry as constituting the lower basin. While, according to the interbasinal division, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah lie in both basins, yet the location of their respective areas is such that, for all practical purposes, Arizona is to be considered as identified with the lower basin, while New Mexico and Utah are to be identified with the upper basin. The compact does not forbid either basin, pending the future apportionment, to put to use the unapportioned waters-in other words, the water in excess of the 7,500,000 acre-feet and the 8,500,-000 acre-feet already apportioned to the upper and lower basins, respectively-after first deducting the water that by treaty the United States may choose to give to Mexico. Neither basin is to be censured for going ahead with all of the development possible, if it wants to chance the uncertainty of its title to waters thus taken from the unapportioned "surplus", in advance of any agreement among the States, or, failing that, in advance of any judicial decision as to what an "equitable division" would be. It is, however, manifestly unfair for either basin to invoke, as against the other, the outside financial aid of the Government, or for the Government to give financial aid in respect to this unapportioned "surplus" where the degree of aid thus given to one basin exceeds disproportionately the aid given to the other. Government money is the money of all the States. As far as concerns the two basins of the Colorado River area, it is the money of both basins, and neither of them should be allowed to call upon it in disproportionate degree. Either each basin should be left to finance itself in respect to its water projects or else the Government in extending aid should keep both basins in mind by equitable allotments of money to each. • • • |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde 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, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : |