OCR Text |
Show -57- fornia may have one-half of any excess of surplus waters unapportioned by the Colorado River compact. The first part of my amendment is a mere corollary to the amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado. It provides that of the remainder of the seven and one-half million acre-feet there shall be apportioned to the State of Nevada 300,000 acre-feet, and to the State of Arizona 2,800,000 acre-feet, which, combined, with 4,400,000 acre-feet which the State of California will use, completely exhausts the seven and one-half million acre-feet apportioned in perpetuity to the lower basin. The second proposal in my amendment is that the State of Arizona may annually use one-half of the surplus or unapportioned water, which is likewise a corollary to the proposal made by the Senator from Colorado, which likewise disposes of the total quantity of surplus or unapportioned waters in the lower basin. Mr. King. And that is provided in the compact, is it not? Mr. Hayden. Yes; and the compact has been so interpreted. If the Senator from Utah is interested in an interpretation of the meaning of surplus unapportioned water, I might well read to him an answer to a question I addressed to Mr. Hoover shortly after the compact was written. I asked Mr. Hoover: What is the estimated quantity of water which constitutes the undivided surplus of the annual flow of the Colorado River and may the compact be construed to mean that no part of this surplus can be beneficially used or consumed in either the upper or the lower basins until 1963, so that the entire quantity above the apportionment must flow into Mexico, where it may be used for irrigation and thus create a prior right to water which the United States would be bound to recognize at the end of the 40-year period ? |
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. |