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

page 37

- 37 - that they might retain for their own consumptive use 7,500,000 acre feet of water per year, which water so retained should not be subject to the claims of the lower basin states at any future time. This was a compact with tremendous considerations moving from each party to the other. No signatory state could have any benefits of the Compact except by assuming its obligations through formal ratification. The State of Arizona now presents to the Secretary of the Interior a contract under the terms of which that state is to receive the use in perpetuity of 2,800,000 acre feet of water per year, substantially all of which comes out of the water which is turned past Lee Ferry by the Upper Basin states under the compulsions of the compact. The Upper Basin states under the Compact are required to turn down 7,500,000 acre feet per year only when the states to whom they turn it recognize their right to retain 7,500,000 acre feet per year. This contract provides that it shall be ratified by the legislature of the State of Arizona. This certainly would not be true if it were a mere water appropriation, and likewise it would not be true if it were a reclamation project. This can only be true upon the theory that it is a compact, if the ratification required by the contract has any significance whatsoever; yet it is beyond dispute that Arizona cannot, through the medium of a mere contract with the Secretary of the Interior, enter into a compact affecting the Upper Basin states, but must make the Compact with those states direct. As observed at the outset, Arizona was empowered to compact and refused to compact. She is now attempting1, throug-h the Secretary of the Interior, to force a compact upon the Upper Basin states whereby she casts upon those states very large burdens for which she gives nothing. Stated in simple terms, this contract adopts the Compact in so far as it requires the Upper Basin states to