OCR Text |
Show 222 water delivery contracts to indicate that he has surrendered it. But once water is released for consumption in the United States, the delivery contracts oblige the Secretary to apportion certain quantities to each state. The aggregate delivery obligation under the Secretary's contracts with California users constitutes a duty similar to the one which the Secretary has undertaken to Arizona and Nevada. Those contracts call for total deliveries of sufficient water to satisfy 5,362,000 acre-feet of consumptive use per annum, subject to the availabilty thereof for use in California under the Project Act. These contracts mean that the Secretary is required to apportion to California users, in accordance with the system of priorities stated in all of the California contracts, 4.4 million acre-feet of the first 7.5 million acre-feet of consumptive use of water from the mainstream in one year, plus one-half of any additional uses apportioned in that year, until a maximum of 5,362,000 acre-feet per annum is consumed in California. As in the case of the Arizona and Nevada contracts, however, I find nothing which indicates that the Secretary has relinquished his discretion to determine in the light of his multiple obligations how much water is to be released from the reservoir for consumptive use in the United States. The water delivery contracts substantially effectuate the apportionment contemplated by Congress in Section 4(a) of the Project Act. It can be no accident that the obligation to deliver 2.8 million acre-feet per annum found in Arizona's contract and the obligation to deliver .3 million acre-feet found in Nevada's contract, when added to the 4.4 million acre-feet to which California is limited out of 7.5 million acre-feet, total that 7.5 million acre-feet. Similarly, it is more than fortuitous that Arizona and Nevada, under their contracts, may share in the half of surplus which California cannot receive under the Section 4(a) limitation. The Secretary's intention must have been that Ari- |
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 |