OCR Text |
Show -26- ment could be undertaken in the lower basin as the 8,500,000 acre feet of water allocated to the lower basin from the Colorado River system (Article 3, Sec. A-l and B) are already being utilized. For the purposes of discussion, your committee assumed, on the basis of reports that the average annual flow of the Colorado River, allowing for all possible depletions in the upper basin above Lee Ferry, would be 16,500,000 acre feet; and that if the upper basin consumed 7,500,000 acre feet of water, it would leave available for use in the lower basin, 9,000,000 acre feet of water plus the water contributed by the streams entering below Lee Ferry. If the Compact were not modified to make this water available for use in the lower basin states, the unconsumed portion would be put to use by Mexico immediately after regulation was established on the river, and the recovery of it forty years hence as provided by the Compact, would be extremely doubtful. So we suggested applying for the use of this water under the terms of Article 3, Paragraph G, of the Compact. We assumed that the Imperial Valley was now diverting and using in the United States and Mexico, 3,439,000 feet of water of the 7,300,000 acre feet that it filed on July 15th, 1895; that the Palo Verde and Blythe Valleys were using 200,000 acre feet, which allowing for evaporation and losses in transit, will bring the total use of water by California and Mexico at the present time, to 4,200,000 acre feet. We estimated that Arizona now has lands under irrigation, or lands for which dams and canals are now being constructed and for which appropriations of water had |
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. |