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Show 132 UPDATING THE HOOVER DAM DOCUMENTS Basin and hence affect the supply of water to the Lower Basin, it has no utility in the adjudication of this litigation, it offers no solution to this controversy among States with respect to their Lower Basin interests, and that it does not control the disposition of the case; and that the provisions of the Compact are addressed solely to the relations of Basin to Basin and not of State to State. An interpretation of Articles HI (a) and (b) of the Compact was provided by the Special Master. In addition to the view that "...Articles III (a) and (b) apportions the use of water between the two Basins and not among States." He stated that "...This apportionment is accomplished by establishing a ceiling on the quantity of water which may be appropriated in each Basin as against the other." In other words they are "...intended to prevent the application of the priority rule (prior appropriation) between the two Basins, a result accomplished by placing limits on the acquisition of appropriative or other water rights in each Basin..." Special Master's Report, pages 140 and 141). The Special Master's analysis of the significance of the Compact provisions appears in pages 141 through 151 of his report and are included as Appendix 801. C.6 Boulder Canyon Project Act Controls One of the most significant conclusions of the Special Master was that: "...the claims of Arizona, California, and Nevada to water from Lake Mead and from the mainstream of the Colorado River below Hoover Dam are governed by the Boulder Canyon Project Act, 45 Stat. 1057 (1929), the California Limitation Act of March 4, 1929, and the several water delivery contracts which the Secretary of the Interior has made pursuant to the authority vested in him by Section 5 of the Project Act. The Colorado River Compact, the doctrine of equitable apportionment, and the law of appropriation are all irrelevant to the allocation of such water among the three States" (Special Master's Report, page 138). It was also the Special Master's opinion that: "The Boulder Canyon Project Act is...the source of authority for the allocation and delivery of water to Arizona, California, and Nevada from Lake Mead and from the Colorado River below Lake Mead" (Special Master's Report, page 151). The Master noted the provisions of Section 5 of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior: "...under such general regulations as he may prescribe to contract for the storage of water in said reservoir and for the delivery thereof at such points on the river...as may be agreed upon, for irrigation and domestic uses...." To make its intention clear, Congress declared in Section 5 of the Project Act that: "No person shall have or be entitled to have the use for any purpose of the water stored as aforesaid except by contract as herein stated" (Special Master's Report, page 151). Also, the intention to exert authority over the allocation and distribution of water stored in Lake Mead can be derived from Section 8(b) which contemplates that the three Lower Basin States, or any two of them, might negotiate a compact for the equitable division of Colorado River water. "These provisions, together with the general operational scheme established in the Project Act and the purposes of the Act explicated in the legislative history, make it clear that the Project Act was designed by Congress to establish the authority for an allocation of all of the available water in Lake Mead and in the mainstream of the Colorado River downstream from Lake Mead among Arizona, California, and Nevada, the only States having geographic access to this water. As to this water, principles such as equitable apportionment or priority of appropriation which might otherwise have controlled the inter-State division of the river in its natural flow condition were rendered inapplicable by the Project Act" (Special Master's Report, page 152). The Special Master noted (Footnote 19, page 152, Special Master's Report) that since the Project Act does not affect rights to water flowing in the Colorado River upstream from Lake Mead, then principles are not abrogated by the Project Act to this reach of the river (see also Report, page 183). The Special Master further noted that: "The Act itself clearly reserves to the United States broad powers over the water impounded in Lake Mead and delegates this power to the Secretary of the Interior, as agent of the United States. He is |