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Show 542 INTERSTATE ADJUDICATIONS of water to California uses. The bill states that the decision in some future action construing Paragraph (b) will materially affect rights of Arizona arising under the Boulder Canyon Project Act, in par- ticular § 4(a) thereof.6 Arizona seeks, as stated in the bill, to perpetuate, and proposes to introduce in support of its construction of Paragraph (b) of Article III, of the Compact, in the actions to be brought in the future, testi- mony to the following effect by those who in 1922 were connected with the negotiation of the Compact: "The representatives of all the States and the United States except the Arizona delegation were in agreement as to the definition of the Colorado River System, including the Gila River and its tributaries, and as to the division proposed, which substantially apportioned the waters of the Colorado River at Lee Ferry, the point selected as dividing the Upper Basin from the Lower Basin. The Arizona dele- gation refused and declined to accept the proposed compact because of the inclusion of the Gila River and its tributaries without any compensating provision to the State of Arizona in lieu of the waters thereof, which had already been appropriated and in which no other State could have any interest on account of the further fact that the waters of the Gila River and its tributaries enter the Colorado River at Yuma, at a point so far down stream and of such low elevation that it was and is impossible to put the waters thereof to beneficial use in the United States after they reach the main stream of the Colo- rado River. Hence, the Arizona delegation pointed out that the conference was discussing something which had already been disposed of and in any event could not concern any State, other than Arizona. Several days elapsed in a discussion between the said representatives of this problem before a solution was found. The problem was finally thought solved by adding subdivision (b) of Article III to the compact as finally approved by said representatives which reads as follows: "'(b) In addition to the apportionment in paragraph (a), the Lower Basin is hereby given the right to increase its beneficial con- sumptive use of such waters by one million acre-feet per annum.' "It was agreed between all the representatives of the various States and the representatives of the United States, negotiating said compact, that said one million acre-feet apportioned by subdivision (b) of Article III of said compact was intended for and should go to the State of Arizona to compensate for the waters of the Gila River and its tributaries being included within the definition of the Colorado River System and the allocations of said compact, and that said one million acre-feet was to be used exclusively by and for the State of Arizona, that being the approximate amount of water then in use within the State of Arizona from the Gila River and its tributaries, and it was agreed that in view of the fact that no appropriation or allocation of water had otherwise been made by said compact directly to any State, the one million acre-feet for the State of Arizona should be included in said compact by an allocation for the Lower Basin. 6 It is claimed that a future decision as to the meaning of Article III (b) will affect rights also under (a) the Colorado River Compact, (b) the conditions required by the F.onlder Canyon Project Act to be attached to patents, grants, contracts, concessions, leases permits, rights of way and other privileges from the United States, (c) the relative and respective rights of each of the parties (to the suit to perpetuate testimony) in the waters of the Colorado and its tributaries, and the use thereof and the burdens and restrictions upon such us«. |