Colorado River Water-Energy-Politics

Abstract

Abstract The Colorado River is one of the most controlled, one of the most controversial and the most litigated river in the world. Its limited water resources are the subject of intense competition for irrigation and municipal uses and soon that competition will increase as the energy resources of the Colorado River Basin are developed to help meet the energy challenges facing the United States. The competition for the waters of the Colorado River has been growing since before the turn of the century and shows no signs of decreasing. Historically, that competition has to a large extent been resolved in one political arena or another and like the competition, the politics surrounding Colorado River water show no signs of decreasing. Although a great deal has been written about the "Law of the River" which is generally thought of as meaning the two Congressionally-approved interstate compacts, (1922 and 1948); one international treaty (1944); and, the laws of the 7 states that comprise the Colorado River Basin, politics and to a fairly large degree emotion, have been a significant and often controlling means by which the waters have been allocated and applied to beneficial use. The seven basin states are California, Arizona and Nevada in the Lower Basin (below Lee Ferry, Arizona) and Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico in the Upper Basin (above Lee Ferry, Arizona). Arizona and Utah are hydrologically partly in the upper and Lower Basins The first of the landmark documents dealing with the division of the waters of the Colorado River and agreed to by the seven states and the United States is the Colorado River Compact of 1922, which provides for the equitable division and apportionment of the use of the waters of the Colorado River system. Even then California was growing faster than the other basin states and politics played an important role in the way the compact was finally ratified. Today California waters approximately 11 million people with Colorado River water and has 45 members in both houses of the United States Congress; Colorado has 7. These numbers speak volumes politically. The Upper Basin states recognized early on that they would have to agree to apportion their waters by a more specific formula and in 1948 entered into the Upper Colorado River Compact which apportions the water among the 4 Upper Basin states: Colorado, 51.75%; New Mexico, 11.25%; Utah, 23%; Wyomong, 14%. This compact establishes the Upper Colorado River Commission and the Upper Basin states fund it in the same ratio as their share of the water. However, when the Upper Colorado River Basin Fund was established by the Colorado River Storage Project Act in 1956 the states agreed to share the fund with 46% to Colorado; 21.5% to Utah; 15.5% to Wyoming and 17% to New Mexico. Politics was instrumental in the decision to share the water and the money on different bases.