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

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1935 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE 10623 Head Gate Dam, Across Colorado River in Arizona senate amendment to h. r. 6732 1. The project and its purposes: Head Gate Rock Dam, the canal and incidental works, are designed to divert and use 500,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water per year for irrigation of 100,000 acres of Colorado River Indian Reservation in Arizona, about 150 miles south of Boulder Dam. Six thousand acres of this land are now under irrigation. None of it is in private ownership nor subject to entry or purchase. The Indian Service plans to make the reclaimed reservation available for settlement by such members of the Navajo and other tribes as may elect to remove from their present locations, large areas of which have become barren and unproductive on account of erosion due to overgrazing. 2. The United States relation to the Colorado River compact: Article VII of the compact reads: "Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian tribes." By subsection (b) of section 13 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, which ratified the compact, it is provided: "(b) The rights of the United States in or to waters of the Colorado River and its tributaries howsoever claimed or acquired, as well as the rights of those claiming under the United States, shall be subject to and controlled by said Colorado River compact." By paragraph (a) article III of Colorado River compact, the " exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre-feet of water" of the Colorado River per annum, in perpetuity, are apportioned to the upper-basin States, consisting of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, and the lower-basin States, consisting of California and Nevada, respectively. As the United States, by the provisions of subsection (b) of section 13, Boulder Canyon Project Act, above quoted, agreed to be bound by the division of the waters of the Colorado as apportioned between the upper- and lower-basin States by the Colorado River compact it, in effect, became and is a party to that interstate treaty. Therefore, it cannot draw upon water apportioned to upper-basin States for irrigation of public or Indian lands in Arizona, California, or Nevada, nor acquire any priority of right against the upper-basin States by a priority of use in the lower-basin States or in Arizona. 3. Arizona and the compact: While Arizona is named in the compact as a party and is designated as one of the lower-basin States, its legislature declined to ratify the treaty and accordingly it is not a party to it and its name, wherever it appears therein, should be disregarded. 4. Nevada and the compact: Due to topographic conditions, Nevada cannot economically put to use more than 300,000 acre-feet per year of Colorado River water.