OCR Text |
Show 301 in each state are limited by the apportionment to the state in which the uses occur.1 Thus the United States receives water in accordance with its priorities, and if the state apportionment is insufficient to satisfy all uses within the state, including federal uses, junior rights, whether acquired under state or federal law, must yield to senior rights within the state. In other words, United States projects must be fitted into a schedule of priorities along with other uses within a state, and the state's mainstream apportionment will be used to satisfy uses within the state, beginning with the senior priority. If the apportionment is not sufficient to satisfy all uses, junior priorities will not receive water. This conclusion is required by the Project Act and the Secretary's water delivery contracts. The Project Act's limitation on California's consumption is written in terms of "the aggregate annual consumptive use ... in the state of California," which language clearly includes all uses, both federal and state. Furthermore, the second paragraph of Section 4(a) contemplates a compact which apportions total consumptive use of mainstream water in the Lower Basin: Arizona is to receive 2.8 million acre-feet plus half of surplus and Nevada is to receive .3 million acre-feet. With California permitted (and expected) to take the other 4.4 million acre-feet of consumptive use plus half of surplus, total annual consumptive use is accounted for. See pages 174-177, 222-224, supra. Nothing is left out of the accounting; nothing remains, therefore, for the United States, except as its uses come within a state's apportionment. The Project Act, in short, contemplates a division of total uses among three parties, Arizona, California and Nevada. No separate provision is made for the United States. If Congress had intended the apportionment to be made among 1Such federal uses as constitute "present perfected rights" within the meaning of Section 6 are, like other perfected rights within the state, an exception to this rule. |
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 |