OCR Text |
Show of a Lower Colorado River Basin Project is an outgrowth of the Pacific Southwest Water Plan. The terms of this Bill, for the most part, resulted from a compromise by representatives of Arizona and California. The principal aspect of this compromise is the agreement by Arizona to allow a priority to California for 4.4 million acre-feet of consumptive use of water, even if such priority involves limiting the deliveries of water to the Central Arizona Project in the event less than 7.5 million acre-feet of water are available from the mainstream of the Colorado River for use in the Lower Basin. This protection to 4.4 million acre-feet of consumptive use is to cease only when facilities are completed which will permanently deliver not less than 2.5 million acre-feet of water annually into the mainstream of the river downstream from Lee Ferry. Under other provisions of the pending version of H. R. 4671 the Secretary of the Interior is instructed to conduct a study of all possible sources to provide additional water supplies by importation or by other means for the Colorado River Basin and to report his findings to the Congress within three years. The measure would authorize construction of the Central Arizona Project, previously and for many years opposed by California, and the construction of Bridge Canyon and Marble Canyon Dams on the Colorado River. Revenues from the sale of power generated at these dams would go into a development fund to be used to help pay the cost of the entire Lower Colorado River Basin Project, including costs of facilities to import water from outside sources into the Basin, if and when works are authorized by the Congress. The Upper Basin and the Lower Colorado River Basin Project Due to the realization of the effects of the prolonged drouth period 1930-1964, and, especially in recent years since the approval by the Congress in 1956 of the Colorado River Storage Project Act (70 Stat. 105) that authorized the construction of the Colorado River Storage Project and participating projects, it has been evident that if any large new water resource projects were to be constructed in the Lower Basin the authorizing legislation must incorporate language to protect the remaining water development potentials in the Upper Basin. The Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. California gave added weight to this need for protection of the Upper Basin's interests by confirming to Arizona the use of 2.8 million acre-feet of water from the main river and excluding the Lower Basin tributaries from an accounting of the waters constituting the Colorado River System, at least, so far as Arizona's 48 |