OCR Text |
Show States not to impair any rights to the beneficial use of water which were perfected as of the date of the compact. This Article then goes on to explain that any claims of such present perfected rights in the Lower Basin which might be made against water users in the Upper Basin "shall attach to and be satisfied from water that may be stored" in a reservoir with a "storage capacity of 5,000,000 acre feet" constructed "on the Main Colorado River within or for the benefit of the Lower Basin." Certain Lower Basin interests are attempting to bend the meaning of Article VIII, particularly the use of the word "impair" to support their contention that the Upper Basin is obligated not to affect in any way the quality of the water available to the Lower Basin. If this contention is correct, then Articles III and VIII of the compact directly contradict one another. Article III gives the Upper Basin States the right to physically consume 7,500,000 acre feet of water each year. However, with the consumptive use of the first acre foot of that amount, the chemical quality of the water at Lees Ferry will be altered to some minute extent and this effect will increase as each additional new acre foot of water is consumed. Under the above interpretation, therefore, it would be impossible to consume any water in the basin above that appropriated prior to 1922 without violating the Compact. It should be obvious, therefore, that, when agreement was reached by the contracting states and the compact was signed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 24, 1922, the compact recognized the right of the Upper Basin to use its full compact allotment with all of the attendant affects which such use might reasonably impose upon both the quantity and quality of the water to the Lower Basin. It should be further pointed out that Article VIII imposes an obligation on all seven contracting States, not on the Upper Basin alone, to see that the then perfected rights are unimpaired. If the contention of these Lower Basin interests is correct, then not only the Upper Basin but each and every water user in both basins whose water rights postdate the year 1922 and who by consumptive use affect the quantity or quality of the water to any user whose right antedates 1922, is a violator of the compact. In connection with the contention of the Lower Basin interests that impair means quality as well as quantity, it should be pointed out that these interests now make no distinction between 1922 perfected rights and those obtained and developed since that date. In their current contention, they would require that not only 1922 and earlier rights on the stream but all Lower Basin rights which may eventually be perfected under the terms of the compact must also be "unimpaired" as to quality. Obviously neither the Upper Basin nor any upstream user properly can be saddled with such a responsibility. Transmountain diversions are under attack by some interests as impairing the general quality of the water supply of the Colorado River since such diversions usually take waters from high in the mountains and thus are accused of removing some of the best waters of the basin. As pointed out previously in this report, such -44- |
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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] : |