OCR Text |
Show 215 Secretary has contracted to deliver certain amounts of water to Arizona and it is for the State to decide which projects within Arizona will receive the State's allotment of water. Thus Arizona argues that the Secretary of the Interior cannot deliver water from the mainstream pursuant to his Reclamation Act delivery contracts unless the State agrees to the intrastate allotment. California joins Arizona in seeking to accomplish the same result, but on different grounds. California suggests that the Reclamation Acts give the Secretary of the Interior power only to build dams and diversion works, not to vest rights to water in individual owners of land on the reclamation projects. California argues that even though the contracts be valid, they, by themselves, do not give individual landowners, water users' associations, or project lands the right to receive water. That right, California states, vests under state law, and it would not be appropriate to decide in this case the various rights and priorities under state law. Arizona's objection to the United States' claims is not well taken. I interpret the Boulder Canyon Project Act as empowering the Secretary of the Interior to contract for delivery of mainstream water to states and to individual users, whether private or public. The Project Act does not require or even suggest that the delivery contracts must be made only with states. It is certainly within the discretion of the Secretary, under the Project Act, to contract directly with individual users in the various states for the delivery of water. He is not confined to contracting with each state and permitting the state to allocate its share of the water to various individual users. Section 5 of the Project Act states that "no person" shall receive water without a contract. Assuming that the word "person" includes a state, it certainly includes entities other than states. If additional support were necessary for this proposition, |
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 |