OCR Text |
Show appropriate water for a reclamation project pursuant to the laws of the state in which such project is built. The Federal Government contends that this section of the Reclamation Law is not mandatory and that the government may disregard the state laws and reserve under its powers waters for federally- financed reclamation projects. This position imposes a government control whether a river is navigable or non-navigable* It is expected that this case, before the close of the present year, will be argued before the Su- preme Court of the United States* 3» During the past several months a number of proposals have been made for the creation of federal authorities to control the planning, construc- tion, and operation of projects designed for the development of the water resources in specified river basins in the West. The legal basis of these proposed federal authorities is found in the "commerce clause" of the nation- al Constitution. The control of the utilization of water resources by such authorities for hydro-electric and other developments threatens to encompass use of water for all purposes, including the present utilization under stat;e laws of western water resources for agricultural development. These authority proposals have not all been of the same type. Some are limited to the creation of an agency for the sale and distribution of power developed by projects constructed by other federal agencies^ However, the authority proposal presents a problem which requires the careful scrutiny and active participation of the states if state jurisdiction over water re- sources is not to be seriously jeopardized. FORIiUIA FOR FEDERAL PARTICIPATION It is evident that the compact method affords a means of correlating ' the federal and state interests in, and jurisdiction over, interstate waters. In the absence of such a correlation, an allocation among states of the waiters of an interstate stream may confliot with well-recognized federal jurisdic- tion or the compact terms may be rendered ineffectual because of the later imposition of such federal jurisdiction. Since in the West future water pro- jects probably will be federally-financed, the compact should be so framed as to impose the terms thereof on federal agencies. And the compact pro- visions should insure recognition by the Federal Government of all applicable state laws. The United States Government is not a neoessary party to an in- terstate compact. Therefore, to accomplish the correlation objective appro- priate Congressional legislative methods may be invoked. A new approach to accomplish this purpose was made in the Republican River Compact recently consented to by Congress and approved by the President* This compact speci- fied that it would become effective only if Congress, in granting its con- sent to the compact, enacted provisions requiring the'United States and its agencies to comply with the following! (a) When they make beneficial consumptive use of waters in the basin, to do so in keeping with the compact allocations. (b) When undertaking programs or projects that would pre- vent or interfere with the full beneficial consumptive use of -67- |