AZ vs. CA:25 California Exhibits, Vol. XXV; Nos. 7501-7859

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- 18 - quiring the Secretary to administer the Project in accordance with the Compact. The total reconstructed, or natural, flow of the river and its tributaries is, on the average, only about 18,-000,000 acre feet. It follows that the Lower Basin cannot be permitted to use more than its apportionment under the Compact without encroaching upon the apportionment of the Upper Basin, to say nothing of encroachment upon a further apportionment which the Upper Basin, under the Compact, may receive after 1963. The Secretary cannot legally contract water from the River to Arizona or any one else in the Lower Basin, which will take water from the stream system, for consumptive use in the Lower Basin, in excess of the 8,500,000 acre feet apportioned to that Basin. Under the Compact, which governs the administration of the waters of the Colorado River System, the Secretary is empowered to let contracts only in accordance with the Compact, which will cause the Lower Basin to receive, at the present time, not more than 8,500,000 acre feet of water, contract water and other combined. The Secretary cannot contract the use of any surplus water to any one in the Lower Basin for such surplus must remain inviolate and without diminution for further apportionment between the Basins after 1963. < i Surplus" water under Article III (c) of the Compact is all water in excess of the 16,000,000 acre feet apportioned. Article III (a) and (b). Arizona, in seeking the execution of the proposed contract, asks the Secretary to give her water, which he cannot give her. To approve this contract would give to the Lower Basin the use of water in that Basin a total of 3,162,000 acre feet, in excess of the Compact apportionment to that Basin and authorizing an annual