Wyoming State Water Plan, Wyoming Water Development Office
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The Colorado River Compact (1922)

The Colorado River Compact is the foundation centerpiece of the Law of the River. A summary of the Compact is provided below, followed by a description of the events leading to its negotiation and its major provisions.

Summary of the Compact:

The Colorado River Compact divides the Colorado River into Upper and Lower Basins with the division being at Lee Ferry on the Colorado River (one mile below the Paria River in Arizona).

Article III of the Compact apportions the waters of the Colorado River to the Upper and Lower Basins as follows:

Background of the Compact:

The rapidly expanding use of Colorado River water in California was viewed with increasing alarm by officials in the Upper Basin States. As a consequence of their concern, the League of the Southwest was formed in 1919 to promote the orderly development and equitable division of the waters of the Colorado River. Congress approved the Kincaid Act in 1920 (41 Stat. 600) directing the Secretary of the Interior to make a full and comprehensive study and to report on the possible diversion and use of the waters of the Colorado River.

During the period when the Secretary.s studies were being conducted, negotiations were undertaken by the seven Basin States for an interstate agreement on the waters of the River. While it was recognized that storage on the Colorado River was essential not only for the flood protection and development for the lower basin, the Upper Basin States faced the possibility that water conserved by storage would be put to use in the Lower Basin more rapidly than the Upper Basin could use its share of the normal flow and thus form the basis for Lower Basin claims of appropriative rights to the water, thereby reestablishing the condition they sought to avoid.

In general, two methods were open for the protection of the upper basin: a Supreme Court suit predicated on the doctrine of equitable apportionment, as distinguished from the doctrine of priority of appropriation irrespective of State lines, or, in the alternative, an interstate compact cutting across the doctrine of appropriation and reserving water against its operation. Interstate compacts had been previously for the settlement of controversies involving boundaries, fisheries, criminal jurisdiction, etc., but had never been used for the allocation for waters of an interstate stream.

As a result of negotiations among the seven Basin States, it was agreed that an interstate compact would establish an equitable apportionment of the waters and protect the Upper Basin States. Each of the seven Basin States adopted the authorizing legislation in 1921 and Congress consented to the negotiations by legislation enacted on August 19, 1921 (42 Stat. 171). The Colorado River Commission convened in January 1922. Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, was elected Chairman. The Upper Basin.s fears and the wisdom of the decision to attempt an interstate agreement was demonstrated when the United States Supreme Court on June 5, 1922, in Wyoming v. Colorado , 259 U.S. 419, upheld the doctrine of priority of appropriations regardless of state lines.

After 27 meetings, a final agreement on the Compact was signed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on November 24, 1922. Although the States had hoped to allocate the Colorado River waters among each of the seven Basin States, such agreement was not possible.

Major Provisions:

The Colorado River Compact, an important, historic document, had the following major provisions:

  1. Article I states the purposes of the Compact.

  2. Article II(a) defines the .Colorado River System. as .that portion of the Colorado River and its tributaries within the United States of America..

  3. Article II(b) defines the .Colorado River Basin. as .all of the drainage area of the Colorado River System and all other territory within the United States of America to which the waters of the Colorado River System. shall be beneficially applied..

  4. Article II(c) defines the term .States of the Upper Division. as .the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming..

  5. Article II(d) defines the term .States of the Lower Division. as .the States of Arizona, California and Nevada..

  6. Article II(e) defines .Lee Ferry. as .a point in the mainstream of the Colorado River one mile below the mouth of the Paria River..

  7. Articles II(f) and II(g) define the terms .Upper Basin. and .Lower Basin,. thus dividing the Colorado River Basin into these two basins.

  8. Article II(h) defines .domestic use. as including .the use of water for household, stock, municipal, mining, milling, industrial and other like purposes, but shall exclude the generation of electrical power..

  9. Article III(a) apportions from the Colorado River System, in perpetuity, the exclusive beneficial consumptive use of 7.5 million acre-feet per year (maf/yr) to each of the two Basins for beneficial consumptive use.

  10. Article III(b) provides that, in addition to the III(a) apportionment, the Lower Basin was given the right to increase its beneficial consumptive use by 1 maf/yr.

  11. Article III(c) provides that if (as has proven to be the case) the United States shall recognize the rights of Mexico to the use of any waters of the Colorado River System, such waters shall first be supplied from the waters which are surplus over and above the aggregate of the quantities specified in paragraphs III(a) and III(b). It also provided that if such surplus shall prove insufficient for this purpose, the Mexican deficiency is to be borne equally by the Upper and Lower Basins, and whenever necessary the States of the Upper Division shall deliver at Lee Ferry water to supply one-half the deficiency so recognized in addition to that provided by paragraph (d).

  12. Article III(d) provides that the Upper Division States .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 ..

  13. Article III(e) provides that the Upper Division States shall not withhold water, and the Lower Division States shall not require the delivery of water, which cannot reasonably be applied to domestic and agricultural use.

  14. Article IV(a) provides that since the Colorado River had ceased to be navigable the use of Colorado River water for navigation shall be subservient to the uses of such water for domestic, agricultural and power purposes.

  15. Article IV(b) provides that the impoundment and use of waters for the generation of electrical power shall be subservient to the use and consumption of such water for agricultural and domestic purposes.

  16. Article VII provides that nothing in the Compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States to Indian Tribes.

  17. Article VIII provides that present perfected rights to the beneficial use of the waters of the Colorado River System are unimpaired by this compact.

  18. Article XI provides that the compact shall become binding and obligatory when it shall have been approved by the legislatures of each of the signatory states and by the Congress of the United States.

Although the River had produced an average flow for the two decades preceding 1922 that would have accommodated 16 maf/yr in beneficial consumptive use annually from the waters of the Colorado River System for the two Basins, the Upper Basin (by virtue of Article III(d) of the Compact) assumed the burden of drier cycles occurring thereafter. Hence the Lower Basin has received a guaranteed 10-year (not annual) minimum flow of 75 maf at the Lee Ferry compact point. The Upper Basin became a guarantor in the sense that its depletions may not reduce the 10-year aggregate flow below the 75 maf at the Lee Ferry compact point.

The Compact was signed by each of the Seven Basin States. Six of the seven States ratified the Compact in 1923 but Arizona did not ratify it until 1944, 21 years later. In 1925, four ratifying States modified the requirement for seven State approval and ratified the Compact which was to become effective upon approval of at least six States and the consent of the United States. Utah and California took the required action in 1929. The United States approval of the Compact was contained in Section 13(a) of the Boulder Canyon Project Act of 1928.