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Show tary waters were concerned. In other words, California pointed out that under the Court's decision there is one type of accounting under its interpretation of the Boulder Canyon Project Act; while the Colorado River Compact calls for a different type of accounting. This came about, so far as California's interpretation of the decision is concerned, as follows: The Court's decision in making a statutory allocation under the Boulder Canyon Project Act eliminated the tributaries in the Lower Basin. California maintained that under the Colorado River Compact tributaries are, by definition, a part of the Colorado River system and, therefore, in any accounting between the Upper and Lower Basins such tributaries must be considered. These tributaries become particularly important so far as the Mexican Treaty is concerned. California pointed out that there is an impossibility of reconciliation between these two methods of accounting, unless the Court intended by its Decree to accept the Arizona position that so far as the Lower Basin is concerned the Colorado River Compact also actually would deal only with mainstream water. The Petition for Rehearing filed by the Metropolitan Water District amplified the original position taken in the main California petition for rehearing inasmuch as it also dealt with the reasons and necessity for accounting in the Lower Basin for waters used in the tributaries as a part of the Colorado River system waters, and the impossibility of reconciling the Decree with system-wide accounting in the Lower Basin. The Petition for Rehearing filed by the Metropolitan Water District fundamentally dealt with the impact of the decision upon that California agency, and reasserted the position of the Metropolitan Water District that the California Limitation Act and the Boulder Canyon Project Act was a statutory compact, and that the interpretation of the satutory compact was that placed upon it by the paries at the time of the entering into such compacts, mainly that system-wide accounting in the Lower Basin would be applied. The main impact of the decision so far as the California agencies are concerned fell upon the Metropolitan Water District, and the elimination of the tributaries from accounting would automatically cut down the amount of water available for use in California. Since the Metropolitan Water District held the lowest priority in California, it would be the first to feel the impact of such cut-back. The Imperial Irrigation District's petition for rehearing was also concerned with the dual accounting system which was set up under the court decision; i.e., one under the Colorado River Compact, and one under the decision. The apparent inability to reconcile these two 34 |