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Show Arkansas River Basin Compact, 1965 The state of Kansas and the state of Oklahoma, acting through their duly authorized compact representatives, Robert L. Smith and Warden L. Noe, for the state of Kansas, and Geo. R. Benz and Frank Raab, for the state of Oklahoma, after negotiations participated in by Trigg Twichell, appointed by the president as the representative of the United States of America, and in accordance with the consent to such negotiations granted by an act of congress of the United States of America, approved August 11, 1955 (Public Law 340, 84th congress, 1st session), have agreed as follows respecting the waters of the Arkansas river and its tributaries: ARTICLE I The major purposes of this compact are: A. To promote interstate comity between the states of Kansas and Oklahoma; B. To divide and apportion equitably between the states of Kansas and Oklahoma the waters of the Arkansas river basin and to promote the orderly development thereof; C. To provide an agency for administering the water apportion- ment agreed to herein; D. To encourage the maintenance of an active pollution-abatement program in each of the two states and to seek the further reduction of both natural and man-made pollution in the waters of the Arkansas river basin. ARTICLE II As used in this compact: A. The term "state" shall mean either state signatory hereto and shall be construed to include any person or per- sons, entity or agency of either state who, by reason of official respon- sibility or by designation of the governor of that state, is acting as an official representative of that state; B. The term "Kansas-Oklahoma Arkansas river commission" or the term "commission" means the agency created by this compact for the administration thereof; C. The term "Arkansas river" means that portion of the Arkansas river from a point immediately below the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers in the vicinity of Wichita, Kansas, to a point immediately below the confluence of the Arkansas river with the Grand-Neosho river near Muskogeej Oklahoma; D. The term "Arkansas river basin" means all of the drainage basin of the Arkansas river as delimited above, including all tributaries which empty into it between the upstream and downstream limits; E. The term "waters of the Arkansas river and its tributaries" means the waters originating in the Arkansas river basin; 12 |