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Show COLORADO RIVER LITIGATION 535 unrelated to the control of navigation, United States v. River Rouge Improvement Co., 269 U.S. 411, 419, the erection and maintenance of such dam and reservoir are clearly within the powers conferred upon Congress. Whether the particular structures proposed are reasonably necessary, is not for this Court to determine. [Citing cases.] And the fact that purposes other than navigation will also be served could not invalidate the exercise of the authority conferred, even if those other purposes would not alone have justified an exercise of Congressional power. [Citing cases.] It is urged that the Court is not bound by the recital of purposes iii the Act; that we should determine the purpose from its probable effect; and that the effect of the project will be to take out of the river, now non-navigable through lack of water, the last half of its remaining average flow. But the Act specifies that the dam shall be used: "First, for river regulation, improvement of navigation and flood control; second, for irrigation and domestic uses and satisfac- tion of present perfected rights . . . ; and third, for power." It is true that the authority conferred is stated to be "subject to the Colo- rado River Compact," and that instrument makes the improvement of navigation subservient to all other purposes. But the specific state- ment of primary purpose in the Act governs the general references to the compact. This Court may not assume that Congress had no purpose to aid navigation, and that its real intention was that the stored water shall be so used as to defeat the declared primary pur- pose. Moreover, unless and until the stored water, which will consist largely of flood waters now wasted, is consumed in new irrigation projects or in domestic use, substantially all of it will be available for the improvement of navigation. The possible abuse of the power to regulate navigation is not an argument against its existence. [Citing cases.] Since the grant of authority to build the dam and reservoir is ralid as an exercise of the Constitutional power to improve navigation, we have no occasion to decide whether the authority to construct the dam and reservoir might not also have been constitutionally conferred for the specified purpose of irrigating public lands of the United States.8 Compare United States v. Rio Grande Dam and Irrigation Co., 174 U.S. 690, 703; United States v. Alford, 274 U.S. 264. Or for the specified purpose of regulating the now and preventing the floods in this interstate river.9 Or as a means of conserving and appor- tioning its waters among the States equitably entitled thereto. Or * "A large part of the land through which the Colorado River flows, or which Is adjacent or tributary to It, Is public domain of which the United States Is the proprietor." Colorado River Compact, H.R. Doc. No. 605, 67th Cong., 4th Sess., March 2, 1923, p. 6. As to extent of this land and irrigation projects on it in connection with the Boulder Canyon Dam, see Report of the Director of the Reclamation Service on Problems of Imperial Valley and Vicinity, Sen. Doc. No. 142, 67th Cong., 2d Sess., February 23, 1922, appendices C-D. See also Department of Interior, Twenty-fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Reclamation (1926). pp. 2-29; Vacant Public Lands on July 1, 1926, Department of Interior, General Land Office, Circular No. 1197, pp. 3-10; Report of the International Water Commission, H.R. Doc. No. 359, 71st Cong., 2d Sess., April 21, 1930, pp. 98-177, and Bibliography, p. 97. 9 Compare the legislation for Mississippi River flood control, independent of navigation improvements, Joint Resolution of May 2, 1922, c. 175, 42 Stat. 504 ; Act of September 22, 1922, e. 427, § 13, 42 Stat. 1038, 1047; Act of December 22, 1927, «. 5, 45 Stat. 2, 38 ; and particularly Act of May 15, 1928, c. 569, 45 Stat. 534. |