OCR Text |
Show -17- quantity of water they desired to obtain out of the Colorado River. At the time the conference was held it was thought that there were but seven and a half million acre-feet of water to divide, and upon that basis the senior Senator from Nevada stated to the Senate that the governors of the upper-basin States recommended that there be awarded to the State of California 4,200,000 acre-feet, to the State of Arizona 3,000,000 acre-feet, and to the State of Nevada 300,000 acre-feet. The Senator explained in his remarks how the four governors arrived at that apportionment, and said that it was done under article 3 of the Colorado River compact, paragraph (a) of which reads as follows: There is hereby apportioned from the Colorado River system in perpetuity to the upper basin and to the lower basin, respectively, the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre-feet of water per annum, which shall include all water necessary for the supply of any rights which may now exist. The Senator then stated that subsequently it was discovered that there was an additional million acre-feet of water apportioned to the lower basin which could be divided. The idea of dividing that additional apportionment of water did not occur [162] to the governors and the representatives of the lower basin States at the time of the Denver conference. The Senator then read to the Senate this provision of the compact, which is paragraph (b) of article 3: In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a), the lower basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by 1,000,000 acre-feet per annum. Senator Pittman stated further that at conferences held in his office during the last session of Congress the suggestion had been made that the additional million acre-feet be divided equally between Arizona and California, and that if that were done the total quantity of water |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde 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, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |