OCR Text |
Show 234 have appropriations of 5 million acre-feet which are prior in time to any of Arizona's and some of these California appropriations were unsatisfied, the two states would nevertheless share surplus equally. And there is, with one exception, nothing in the Project Act or the Secretary's delivery contracts which suggests that a similar parity as between the states does not prevail if there is less than 7.5 million acre-feet of consumptive use to be apportioned among them. That single exception, the command in Section 6 that "present perfected rights" shall be satisfied, further emphasizes that Congress did not intend that principles of priority of appropriation should apply in times of short supply to control the interstate allocation of mainstream water. The purpose of Section 6, as explained more fully at pages 306 et seq., is to protect mainstream uses in existence at the time the Project Act was enacted against the possibility that their water would be impounded by the proposed dam and delivered to other uses developed after the dam was constructed. Since these early uses are prior in time to uses developed in reliance on Hoover Dam, there would be no need to protect them against this possibility if priority of appropriation governed the interstate delivery of water in periods of short supply. Furthermore, the priority scheme established by Section 6, which is based on "perfected rights," is in certain particulars inconsistent with principles of priority of appropriation. Thus, it is quite possible that a right "perfected" as of June 25, 1929, and thus protected by Section 6 is junior in priority to a right recognized under state law but not "perfected" as of that date. In such a case, Section 6 would reverse the order of state priorities. If Congress had intended priority of appropriation to retain interstate significance after the enactment of the Project Act, it might |
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 |