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Show COLORADO RIVER LITIGATION 545 of Arizona shall have the exclusive beneficial use of the Gila River and its tributaries within the boundaries of said State ... (7) said agree- ment to take effect upon the ratification of the Colorado River com- pact by Arizona, California and Nevada." 3. Arizona refused to ratify the Colorado River Compact, and the authority conferred upon Arizona, Nevada and California by the Boulder Canyon Project Act to enter into an agreement for apportion- ing the waters has not been acted on. But California bound itself, by the Act of its legislature, March 16,1929, to the limitation of 4,400,000 acre-feet, plus one-half of the surplus; Arizona claims that the limi- tation on California's use must have been enacted for the benefit solely of Arizona, since geographically she alone could use waters in the lower basin wThich California may not use; and that, because it is em- bodied in a statute, the limitation imposed by Congress on California's use confers rights upon Arizona, although she failed to sign either the principal or the subsidiary compact. 4. In support of the contention that Article III (b) of the Compact has a bearing on the interpretation of the limitation of § 4 (a) of the Act, Arizona points to the fact that while the Boulder Canyon Project Act makes no mention of the 1,000,000 acre-feet assigned to the lower basin by Article III (b) of the Compact, § 4 (a) of the Act limits California, in terms, to 4,400,000 acre-feet of the waters apportioned to the lower basin under Article III (a) of the Compact plus one-half of the "surplus waters unapportioned by said compact"; that § 4 (a) declares that such uses by California are "always to be subject to the terms of said compact"; that California claims that, in addition to the waters already mentioned, she is entitled, as one of the parties to the Compact, to draw upon the Article III (b) waters; and that, act- ing upon this assumption, the Secretary of the Interior has already contracted with California users for delivery of 5,362,000 acre-feet of water per annum from the main stream of the Colorado River, though this water is not yet being delivered; whereas Arizona contends that by a proper interpretation of Article III (b) California is excluded from all the waters thereunder in favor of Arizona. 5. In support of the contention that Article III (b) is ambiguous, Arizona points out that, whereas the Compact awards to the lower basin, in the aggregate, 8,500,000 acre-feet of water,8 Article III (d) of the Compact shows that only 7,500,000 of this is to come from the main stream of the Colorado River, since that section provides: "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 continu- ing progressive series beginning with the first day of October next succeeding the ratification of this compact." It argues that the 75,000,000 was doubtless arrived at through mul- tiplying by ten the 7,500,000 acre-feet per annum apportioned to the lower basin under Article III (a) ; that though the lower basin is en- titled to 8,500,000 acre-feet, it can only call on the upper basin to release 7,500,000 acre-feet from the main stream; that the only other waters below Lee Ferry which are available to the lower basin come 8 That is the 7,500,000 of the Article III (a) waters and the 1,000,000 of the Article III (b) waters. |