THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLORADO RIVER COMPACT

The Compact among Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and California divided the Colorado River Basin into an Upper Basin and Lower Basin. This Compact appropriated 7.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water per year to each basin. It also provides a right to the Lower Basin to increase its beneficial consumptive use of such waters by one million acre-feet (MAF) per year. Arizona refused until 1944 to ratify the Compact over concerns about the allocation of water among states.