OCR Text |
Show rado River System below Lee Ferry, and also all parts of said States located without the drainage area of the Colorado River System which are now or shall hereafter be bene- ficially served by waters diverted from the sys- tem below Lee Ferry. (h ) The term "domestic use" shall include the use of water for household, stock, munici- pal, mining, milling, industrial, and other like purposes, but shall exclude the generation of electrical power. Article III (a) There is hereby apportioned from the Colorado River System in perpetuity to the upper basin and to the lower basin, respec- tively, the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7,500,000 acre-feet of water per annum, whicli shall include all water necessary for the supply of any rights which may now exist. (&) In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a), the lower basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by 1,000,000 acre-feet per annum. (c) If, as a matter of international comity, the United States of America shall hereafter recognize in the United States of Mexico any right to the use of any waters of the Colorado River- System, such waters shall be supplied first From the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs (a) and (b); and if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, then the burden of such deficiency shall fce equally borne by the Upper Basin and and the Lower Basin, and whenever neces- sary tlie States of the Upper Division shall de- liver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half of the deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided in paragraph (d). (d) The States of the Upper Division will not cause the flow of the river at Lee Ferry to be depleted below an aggregate of 75,000,000 acre-feet for any period of 10 consecutive years reckoned in continuing progressive series be- ginning with the first day of October next succeeding the ratification of this compact. (e) The States of the Upper Division shall not withhold water, and the States of the Lowea: Division shall not require the de- livery of water, which cannot reasonably be applied to domestic and agricultural uses. (/) Further equitable apportionment of the beneficial uses of the waters of the Colorado River System unapportioned by paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) may be made in the manner provided in paragraph (g) at any time after October 1, 1963, if and when either basin shall have reached its total beneficial consumptive use as set out in paragraph (a) and (b). (g) In the event of a desire for further ap- portionment as provided in paragraph (/) any two signatory States, acting through their Governors, may give joint notice of such desire to the Governors of other signatory States and to the President of the United States of America, and it shall be the duty of the Gov- ernors of the signatory States and of the President of the United States of America forthwith to appoint representatives, whose duty it shall be to divide and apportion equi- tably between the upper basin and the lower basin the beneficial use of the unapportioned water of the Colorado River System as men- tioned in paragraph (/), subject to the leg- islative ratification of the signatory States and the Congress of the United States of America. Between the upper and lower basins conflicts are prospective rather than real or immediate. One prospective conflict may arise over the way in which "beneficial consumptive use" of water shall be measured. The States of the upper basin (in- cluding Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Arizona) contend that the measure of water used is the man-made depletion of the virgin flow at Lee Ferry. Arizona contends that this same depletion theory applies to the lower basin, with the control point being the International Bound- ary. California and Nevada contend that "bene- ficial consumptive use" must be measured as the total of the diversions to each project less the return flow from each project. Both contentions are based upon concepts of the measurement of consumptive use. One (ad- hered to by Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) is based upon a basin-wide concept, while the other (adhered to by California and Nevada) is based upon an individual project con- cept. Both are versions of "diversions less return flow" as a measure of consumptive use. Under the basin-wide concept, the man-made depletion of the virgin flow at Lee Ferry is the consumptive use of diversions less return flow. 390 |