Colorado River Compact

The Colorado River Compact is an agreement among seven southwestern states concerning sharing the water from the Colorado River, which was signed on November 24, 1922.^[1] It was an interstate agreement that paved the way to constructing the Hoover Dam and providing water to those states for next century.

Called "basin" states, the signatories to this Compact were California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and, later in 1944, Arizona.

The Imperial Irrigation District and Metropolitan Water District of Southern California hold the primary claims to the Colorado River, and western water law gives priority to these first users. In the renegotiation scheduled for 2022 -- the deadlines have been missed -- "these districts say they're willing to use less water or pay others to do so," perhaps because they risk losing their senior rights.^[2]

The Compact is based on an overestimate, probably deliberate, of 16.4 million acre-feet of water supposedly made available annually by the Colorado River.^[3] In fact, it rarely supplied that much, and since 1991 its average has been only 13.5 million acre-feet, and declining from that.

Herbert Hoover, who was in the first graduating class of Stanford University, negotiated the compact and was suspected of having favoritism for California.^[3] Arizona was strongly opposed to building the Parker Dam in 1934 and even sent troops to try to stop it.

An analysis by the left-leaning Los Angeles Times on September 21, 2022, attributes the water crisis in the southwest more to the fundamental flaws in the Colorado River Compact and the growth in water usage there, than to climate change.^[3]

Revisited in 2022 and 2023[edit]

By the end of 2022, a shortage in water from the Colorado River has resulted in a conflict between California and the other six southwestern states on this issue of sharing the water from this river.^[4] California seeks a priority in rights based on the "Law of the River," while the other six states seek a more equitable allocation of the water based on current needs.

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