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Show RIO GRANDE CONVENTION 445 NOTES The text of the treaty set out above is taken from 34 Stat. 2953 (see also Treaty Series No. 455) which also includes the Spanish text, here omitted. Ratification of the treaty was advised by the Senate June 26, 1906 (Executive I, 59th Congress, reprinted in House Document 548, 59th Congress); the President ratified it December 26, 1906 and the United States of Mexico January 5, 1907; ratifications were exchanged in Washington January 16, 1907; and the treaty was pro- claimed by the President January 16,1907. Belated legislation.--The Act of March 4,1907 (34 Stat. 1295) ap- propriated $1,000,000 "toward the construction of a dam [now known as Elephant Butte dam] for storing and delivering sixty thousand acre- feet of water annually, in the bed of the Rio Grande, at the point where the head works of the Acequia Madre now exists, above the City of Juarez, Mexico," as provided in the treaty and provided that the remainder of the cost of the project should be charged to the reclama- tion fund. The Acts of August 29, 1935 (49 Stat, 961) and June 4, 1936 (49 Stat. 1463) authorized, respectively, construction of a diversion dam at the Caballo Reservoir site in New Mexico and construction of works for canalization of the Rio Grande from that site to near El Paso, Texas, "in order to facilitate compliance with the convention between the United States and Mexico concluded May 21, 1906 * * * and to properly regulate and control, to the fullest extent possible, the water supply for use in the two countries as provided by treaty * * *." See also the Act of September 18,1964 (78 Stat. 956) on arrangements for local maintenance of flood and sediment control dams constructed under the canalization authorization. Related litigation.-In United States v. Rio Grande Dam and Irri- gation Company, 174 U.S. 690 (1899), a suit which was commenced "upon complaint of the Mexican authorities" (1 Hackworth, Digest of International Law (1940) 584), the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts' dismissal of the action with instructions to institute "an inquiry into the question whether the intended act of the defendants in the construction of a dam [at approximately the present site of Elephant Butte dam] and in appropriating the waters of the Rio Grande will substantially diminish the navigability of that stream within the limits of present navigability, and if so, to enter a decree restraining those acts to the extent that they will so diminish" (p. 710). The Court held that the fact that the Rio Grande was not navigable at or for a considerable distance below the site of the proposed dam was not, as the lower courts had apparently believed, conclusive of the case in view of the provisions of section 10 of the Act of September 19, 1890 (26 Stat. 426,454) which prohibited "the creation of any obstruc- tion, not affirmatively authorized by law, to the navigable capacity of any waters, in respect of which the United States has jurisdic- tion * * *." (pp. 707f) In view of this, the Court found it unneces- sary to consider the effect, if any, of earlier treaties with Mexico relat- ing to the maintenance of the Rio Grande's navigability (pp. 699f). And, recognizing the right of the States to change the common law rule of riparian rights and to substitute a rule of prior appropriation, it pointed out that "two limitations must be recognized: First, that in the absence of specific authority from Congress a State cannot by its |