The agreement, originally proposed by attorney Delph Carpenter,[1] was signed at a meeting at Bishop's Lodge, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, by representatives of the seven states the Colorado river and its tributaries pass through on the way to Mexico. The agreement was promoted by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.
The Colorado River is managed and operated under numerous compacts, federal laws, an international treaty, court decisions and decrees, contracts, and regulatory guidelines collectively known as "the Law of the River".[2]
Provisions
The Compact divides the river basin into two areas, the Upper Basin division (comprising Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming) and the Lower Basin division (Nevada, Arizona and California). The Compact requires the Upper Basin states not to deplete the flow of the river below 75,000,000 acre-feet (93km3) during any period of ten consecutive years.[3] Based on rainfall patterns observed in the years before the treaty's signing in 1922, the amount specified in the Compact was assumed to allow a roughly equal division of water between the two regions. The states within each basin were required to divide their 7.5million acre-feet per year (293 cubic meters per second) share allotment among themselves. The Compact enabled the widespread irrigation of the Southwest, as well as the subsequent development of state and federal water works projects under the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Such projects included the Hoover Dam and Lake Powell.
The annual allotments in the Lower Basin were established in 1928 as part of the Boulder Canyon Project, while the annual allotments in the Upper Basin were established by the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact of 1948.[4] They are:
Upper Basin, 7.5 million acre·ft/year (293 m³/s) total
Colorado
51.75%*
3.86 million acre·ft/year (150.7 m³/s)
Utah
23.00%*
1.71 million acre·ft/year (67.0 m³/s)
Wyoming
14.00%*
1.04 million acre·ft/year (40.8 m³/s)
New Mexico
11.25%*
0.84 million acre·ft/year (32.8 m³/s)
Arizona
0.70%
0.05 million acre·ft/year (2.0 m³/s)
*Percentages with a star are a percentage of the total after Arizona's 0.05 million are deducted. Arizona's percentage is of the total.
Lower Basin, 7.5 million acre·ft/year (293 m³/s) total
California
58.70%
4.40 million acre·ft/year (172 m³/s)
Arizona
37.30%
2.80 million acre·ft/year (109 m³/s)
Nevada
4.00%
0.30 million acre·ft/year (12 m³/s)
In addition to this, 1.5million acre-feet per year (59 cubic meters per second) of Colorado River water is allocated to Mexico, pursuant to the treaty relating to the use of waters of the Colorado and Tijuana rivers and of the Rio Grande, signed February 3, 1944, and its supplementary protocol signed November 14, 1944. Also, the lower basin can get an additional 1.1-millionacre⋅ft/a (43m3/s) in surplus conditions.[5]
The 1922 Colorado River Compact was the fruit of several years of negotiations among the states. The seven states had previously formed the League of the Southwest in 1917 to promote development along the river.[6] In 1921, Congress authorized the states to enter into a compact for allocation of the river resources. The agreement, also known as the Santa Fe Compact, was approved by Congress in 1922, the same year it was signed by the delegates who negotiated the agreement. The agreement was subject to the ratification of the seven states. Six states ratified the agreement by the end of January 1923.[7] Arizona did not sign until 1944.[8]
The Compact determined that the water would be shared equally among the upper and lower basin. Prior to the Compact, the name of the river was standardized along its length. Previously the portion of the river upstream from its confluence with the Green River had been known locally as the "Grand River". The change was opposed by many local residents in Utah and Colorado, and the new name was enforced locally by acts of the state legislatures in both states in the early 1920s. One of the major ongoing concerns since the 1920s was the expanding population, which increased the demand for water, particularly in California. In more recent years, mainly because of Las Vegas, Nevada has been looking for more use of the Colorado River.[9]
The Compact did not address a number of issues, including Indian or Mexican water rights, or how evaporation would be shared among the basins. Later studies of flow found that the Compact apportioned more water than would be reliably delivered at the boundary between the two basins.[10] The Compact allowed use of surplus flows by downstream states, but did not provide clear rules addressing shortages.[10]
The Compact was controversial at the time. During the Compact negotiations, Governor-elect Hunt laid out his determination to protect Arizona’s rights to irrigate her lands and obtain a portion of the electrical power revenue that would be generated by future dams. There was also fear that the surplus water would be usurped by Mexico, as treaty rights had not yet been defined and agricultural development of the Mexican delta was underway. As a result of these concerns and others, the 1923 Arizona legislature refused to ratify the Compact.[11]
A 1927 effort among the lower basin states to agree how to share shortages and surplus failed. Arizona feared that during times of shortage, she would have to release stored water from the Gila River system to Mexico.[7] Led by Fred Colter, the state refused to sign the Compact until two months after Colter's death in 1944.[12]:17–18 In 1944, Mexico and the U.S. negotiated a treaty granting Mexico the right to 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water.
The 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act provided a way for the nation to move ahead with construction of dams and diversions without the approval of Arizona. It invited the three lower basin states to divide the waters of the Colorado with 2.8 million acre-feet to Arizona, 300,000 acre-feet to Nevada and 4.4 million acre-feet to California. It gave Congressional pre-approval to such allotments, and to sharing any surplus equally between California and Arizona.The specific state allotments in the Boulder Canyon Act were disputed by Arizona until the United States Supreme Court upheld the amount in the 1963 decision in Arizona v. California.[8]
Arizona took other steps as well to protect its water and keep California from gaining too large a share. In 1934, Arizona, unhappy with California's decision to dam and divert the river, called out the National Guard and even commissioned a two-boat "navy."[13] The contentions over water sharing and the provisions of the Boulder Canyon Project Act were eventually settled in court through a series of four Arizona v. California Supreme Court decisions.The case lasted 11 years and cost over $5 million, requiring the work of over 50 lawyers.[14]Arizona v. California found, for the first time, that Congress had the power to allocate water to the states and had done so through the Boulder Canyon Act, for the lower states (which are California, Nevada, and Arizona).[8] While the Court ultimately ruled in favor of Arizona, it agreed with California's interpretation of how it should receive surplus water supplies.The 1963 court decision ended many years of dispute, clearing the way for the Central Arizona Project, authorized by Congress in 1968.
Tribal claims and contributions to flows
The 1908 Supreme Court decision Winters v. United States recognized a federal obligation to ensure water for tribal homelands. Under prior appropriation, these federally reserved rights date to when the reservations were established. In theory, the early priority dates of tribal water rights should mean that these rights are among the most valuable and reliable. In practice, many tribes cannot use the Colorado River water that flows through their lands. Delays in quantifying water rights have meant that tribal water has been used by others for decades.[15]
The Compact mentions tribal water rights in Article VII: "Nothing in this compact shall be construed as affecting the obligations of the United States of America to Indian Tribes" but the federal and state governments have long delayed actions to meet those obligations. It was not until 1963 that Arizona v. California established how Indian water rights should be quantified. In 2001, Arizona’s Supreme Court rejected the standard set in Arizona v. California for yet a different method.[15] In negotiations, Arizona has established other conditions that tribes find reprehensible, a factor which has also delayed use or delivery of water to reservations.[16]
There are 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River basin, 12 of which still struggle to get all of their water rights.[17] The Navajo Nation has the largest water right in the Colorado River basin that is yet to be quantified. The Navajo sued in 2003 for their water rights; the Supreme Court decided in 2023 that the federal government cannot be forced to act in a timely way to quantify or settle their claims to the river.[18]
The Colorado River Indian Tribes have one of the largest and oldest rights to the flow of the Colorado River. By volunteering to leave part of their nearly 720,000-acre-foot allocation in Lake Mead, they forestalled deeper cutbacks for others along the Colorado River system under the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan.[19]
Over-use, climate change, and other issues
Since the development of the Colorado River Compact, California (and Arizona) have been using the surplus water that has been left over from other states. With increasing population growth in the Southwest, there was concern that this surplus will soon not exist for California use. In 2001, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt signed an interim agreement determining how water surplus from the Colorado River would be allocated between the states and creating a 15-year period to allow California time to put conservation methods in place to reduce the state's water usage and dependence on Colorado River water.[20]
The Lower Basin has received a total of 10 million acre-feet of water above and beyond the Compact requirements since January 2000, but the levels of Lake Mead have been dropping.[21] The steady depletion of water at Lake Mead due to over-allocation of the flows is called the “structural deficit”.[22] According to Thomas McCann, former Deputy Manager for the Central Arizona Project, the deficit is caused by 1) avoiding any allocation of evaporation costs to the Lower Basin states, and 2) meeting Mexican Treaty obligations by taking water out of Lake Mead storage rather than out of Arizona and California's allocations.[23] Continued structural deficit at Lake Mead puts the reliability of the Lower Basin’s water and hydroelectric power at risk if lake levels should drop too low.[24]
Nevada, with the smallest water allocation in the lower river basin, became concerned that the decline in Lake Mead levels would jeopardize the water intake for the Las Vegas area. In 2008 Southern Nevada Water Authority began constructing a new water intake at a lower level in Lake Mead.[25] General Manager Pat Mulroy said she did not support water reallocation.[26] Instead, Las Vegas and the Water Authority have worked assiduously on water conservation to support their region's growing population.[27]
Overuse from Lake Mead is not the only issue. There has been a megadrought in the Southwestern US from 2000 to 2023. Climate change will likely decrease the river’s flow (from its mid-20th century average) by 20 percent by 2050.[28] A more recent study estimated that rising temperatures reduced the river’s flow by around 10% between 2000 and 2021.[29]
When the Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922, no allocation of water was reserved for environmental functions. Using and reusing the river water, as well as frequent damming, results in an unfavorable environment for native fish species. Dams block fish passage, reduce flood peaks alter natural sediment transported to flood plains and deltas, and change water temperatures–all negatively impacting the natural ecosystem.[30]
Dams and diversions have also caused the Colorado River Delta, located in Mexico, to deteriorate significantly. Once a lush and green area, a vast ecosystem has nearly disappeared. It was originally estimated to have 17 million acre-feet a year, but prior to the drought, flows have often been less than a third of that. A coalition of U.S.-based organizations is working with the Mexican government to restore some flows to the delta.[31][32]
Estimated flows
The amount of water allocated via the Compact was based on an expectation that the river's average flow was 16,400,000 acre-feet (20.2km3) per year (641 m³/s). Subsequent tree ring studies, however, have concluded that the long-term average water flow of the Colorado is significantly less. Estimates have included 13,200,000 acre-feet (16.3km3) per year (516 m³/s),[33]13,500,000 acre-feet (16.7km3) per year (528 m3/s),[34] and 14,300,000 acre-feet (17.6km3) per year (559 m3/s).[35] Many analysts have concluded that when the Compact was negotiated, the period used as the basis for "average" flow of the river (1905–1922) included periods of abnormally high precipitation.[36] The book Science be Dammed finds that politicians and boosters repeatedly ignored engineering estimates of the 1920s that provided lower values of flow.[37]
Shortages
Since 2000, dwindling Colorado River flows and consumption rates in excess of natural replenishment have provoked a need to plan for shortages.[38] Because of its lower priority, shortages should fall primarily upon the users of the Central Arizona Project, however the consequences for some Arizona farmers and urban sectors could be dire. If the federal government acts unilaterally to restrict other uses of water, they run the risk of litigation.[38] For these and other reasons, river users are exploring voluntary measures address shortages.
Some have called for amending or re-interpreting the Compact in light of its past deficiencies.[39] The widespread dropping of reservoir levels in the region, in particular at Lake Powell, created by the Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, has prompted calls for the reservoir to be permanently drained and decommissioned, or at least operated to fill only after Lake Mead levels are brought up.[40]
In December 2007, a set of interim guidelines on how to allocate Colorado River water in the event of shortages was signed by the Secretary of the Interior.[5][41] The guidelines extend through 2026, and, "acknowledging the potential for impacts due to climate change and increased hydrologic variability," interim guidelines provide "the opportunity to gain valuable operating experience for the management of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, particularly for low reservoir conditions...whether during the interim period or thereafter."[42] The agreement specifies three levels of shortage conditions, depending on the level of Lake Mead:
Light shortage. When the surface elevation at Lake Mead is below 1,075 feet (328m) relative to mean sea level but above 1,050 feet (320m), the Lower Basin states will receive 7,167,000 acre-feet (8.840km3) per year: 4,400,000 acre-feet (5.4km3) to California, 2,480,000 acre-feet (3.06km3) to Arizona, and 287,000 acre-feet (0.354km3) to Nevada.
Heavy shortage. When the surface elevation of Lake Mead is below 1,050 feet (320m) but above 1,025 feet (312m), 7,083,000 acre-feet (8.737km3) per year will be delivered to the Lower Basin states: 4,400,000 acre-feet (5.4km3) to California, 2,400,000 acre-feet (3.0km3) to Arizona, and 283,000 acre-feet (0.349km3) to Nevada.
Extreme shortage. The most severe shortage considered in the interim guidelines is when the level of Lake Mead drops below 1,025 feet (312m), in which event 7,000,000 acre-feet (8.6km3) per year will be delivered to the Lower Basin states: 4,400,000 acre-feet (5.4km3) to California, 2,320,000 acre-feet (2.86km3) to Arizona, and 280,000 acre-feet (0.35km3) to Nevada.
A Drought Contingency Plan signed by seven Western states in 2019 used voluntary cutbacks to forestall federal reductions in use of the Colorado River amid a 19-year drought.[43] In May 2023, the states agreed to further reduce allocations temporarily.[44] In June 2023, U. S. Bureau of Reclamation began preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for further modifications of dam operations at Hoover and Glen Canyon to respond to deepening drought conditions.[45]
The Bureau of Reclamation must decide how to manage the system after 2026, when the current operating guidelines expire. In March 2024, Reclamation received five proposals for post-2026 guidelines. By December 2024, Reclamation will publish its draft for the post-2026 guidelines and request comments from the public. Around December 2025, Reclamation may publish its final version of the post-2026 guidelines. On January 1 2027, the Interim Guidelines and Drought Contingency Plan, which have jointly managed the Colorado River since 2007, will no longer be in effect. The post-2026 operating guidelines will then determine how Reclamation manages the river.[46]
Flows to Mexico
On November 20, 2012, the International Boundary and Water Commission of the United States and Mexico signed an agreement termed "Minute 319," which updated the Law of the River to address how the 1,500,000 acre-feet (1.9km3) of Colorado River water that Mexico receives every year would be affected by surplus or drought conditions.[47] Under surplus conditions (when the surface elevation of Lake Mead is above 1,145 feet (349m) relative to mean sea level) the annual flow to Mexico will increase by 40,000 acre-feet (0.049km3). In cases where the surface elevation of Lake Mead is higher than that, the extra deliveries to Mexico progressively increase, reaching a maximum of an additional 200,000 acre-feet (0.25km3) per year.
Minute 319 also specifies that deliveries to Mexico will be reduced under drought conditions. Starting from the base allocation of 1,500,000 acre-feet (1.9km3) per year, annual deliveries will be reduced by 50,000 acre-feet (0.062km3) if the surface elevation of Lake Mead is between 1,075 feet (328m) and 1,050 feet (320m) above mean sea level; reduced by 70,000 acre-feet (0.086km3) acre-feet if the elevation is 1,050 feet (320m) to 1,025 feet (312m); and reduced by 125,000 acre-feet (0.154km3) if the surface elevation is below 1,025 feet (312m).
Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, during the Great Depression, it was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers, and cost over 100 lives. In bills passed by Congress during its construction, it was referred to as the Hoover Dam, after President Herbert Hoover, but was named the Boulder Dam by the Roosevelt administration. In 1947, the name Hoover Dam was restored by Congress.
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the southwestern United States, located on the Colorado River in northern Arizona, near the city of Page. The 710-foot-high (220 m) dam was built by the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1956 to 1966 and forms Lake Powell, one of the largest man-made reservoirs in the U.S. with a capacity of more than 25 million acre-feet (31 km3). The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a series of deep sandstone gorges now flooded by the reservoir; Lake Powell is named for John Wesley Powell, who in 1869 led the first expedition to traverse the Colorado River's Grand Canyon by boat.
Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, 24 mi (39 km) east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland.
Lake Powell is a reservoir on the Colorado River in Utah and Arizona, United States. It is a major vacation destination visited by approximately two million people every year. It holds 24,322,000 acre-feet (3.0001×1010 m3) of water when full, second in the United States to only Lake Mead - though Lake Mead has fallen below Lake Powell in size several times during the 21st century in terms of volume of water, depth and surface area.
The Gila River is a 649-mile-long (1,044 km) tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of nearly 60,000 square miles (160,000 km2) that lies mostly within the U.S., but also extends into northern Sonora, Mexico.
The San Juan River is a major tributary of the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States, providing the chief drainage for the Four Corners region of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. Originating as snowmelt in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, it flows 383 miles (616 km) through the deserts of northern New Mexico and southeastern Utah to join the Colorado River at Glen Canyon.
Lees Ferry is a site on the Colorado River in Coconino County, Arizona in the United States, about 7.5 miles (12.1 km) southwest of Page and 9 miles (14 km) south of the Utah–Arizona state line.
The Colorado River dispute is a long-running dispute between the United States and Mexico over water rights to the Colorado River.
Flaming Gorge Dam is a concrete thin-arch dam on the Green River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, in northern Utah in the United States. Flaming Gorge Dam forms the Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which extends 91 miles (146 km) into southern Wyoming, submerging four distinct gorges of the Green River. The dam is a major component of the Colorado River Storage Project, which stores and distributes upper Colorado River Basin water.
Navajo Dam is a dam on the San Juan River, a tributary of the Colorado River, in northwestern New Mexico in the United States. The 402-foot (123 m) high earthen dam is situated in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains about 44 miles (71 km) upstream and east of Farmington, New Mexico. It was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) in the 1960s to provide flood control, irrigation, domestic and industrial water supply, and storage for droughts. A small hydroelectric power plant was added in the 1980s.
The Colorado River Storage Project is a United States Bureau of Reclamation project designed to oversee the development of the upper basin of the Colorado River. The project provides hydroelectric power, flood control and water storage for participating states along the upper portion of the Colorado River and its major tributaries.
California's interconnected water system serves almost 40 million people and irrigates over 5,680,000 acres (2,300,000 ha) of farmland. As the world's largest, most productive, and potentially most controversial water system, it manages over 40 million acre-feet (49 km3) of water per year. Use of available water averages 50% environmental, 40% agricultural and 10% urban, though this varies considerably by region and between wet and dry years. In wet years, "environmental" water averages 61%, while in dry years it averages 41%, and can be even lower in critically dry years.
Glen Canyon Dam, a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in the American state of Arizona, is viewed as carrying a large amount of risk, most notably due to siltation. The Colorado and San Juan rivers deposit large volumes of silt into Lake Powell, slowly decreasing its capacity. The sediment will eventually build up against the dam and could affect its safe operation and lead to its failure.
The Klamath Diversion was a federal water project proposed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the 1950s. It would have diverted the Klamath River in Northern California to the more arid central and southern parts of that state. It would relieve irrigation water demand and groundwater overdraft in the Central Valley and boost the water supply for Southern California. Through the latter it would allow for other Southwestern states—Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah—as well as Mexico to receive an increased share of the waters of the Colorado River.
Bridge Canyon Dam, also called Hualapai Dam, was a proposed dam in the lower Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, in northern Arizona in the United States. It would have been located near Bridge Canyon Rapids in an extremely rugged and isolated portion of the canyon, 235 miles (378 km) downstream of Lees Ferry and at the uppermost end of Lake Mead.
Hooker Dam was a proposed dam on the Gila River in New Mexico, planned as a major component of the Central Arizona Project. Located near the mouth of the river's canyon upstream from the confluence of the Gila with Mogollon Creek and below Turkey Creek, the dam was to be part of the CAP's Gila River Division, authorized under the 1968 Colorado River Basin Project Act. The project was planned to provide 18,000 acre-feet (0.022 km3)/year of water to western New Mexico.
The San Juan–Chama Project is a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation interbasin water transfer project located in the states of New Mexico and Colorado in the United States. The project consists of a series of tunnels and diversions that take water from the drainage basin of the San Juan River – a tributary of the Colorado River – to supplement water resources in the Rio Grande watershed. The project furnishes water for irrigation and municipal water supply to cities along the Rio Grande including Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
The Colorado River is a major river of the western United States and northwest Mexico in North America. Its headwaters are in the Rocky Mountains where La Poudre Pass Lake is its source. Located in north central Colorado it flows southwest through the Colorado Plateau country of western Colorado, southeastern Utah and northwestern Arizona where it flows through the Grand Canyon. It turns south near Las Vegas, Nevada, forming the Arizona–Nevada border in Lake Mead and the Arizona–California border a few miles below Davis Dam between Laughlin, Nevada and Needles, California before entering Mexico in the Colorado Desert. Most of its waters are diverted into the Imperial Valley of Southern California. In Mexico its course forms the boundary between Sonora and Baja California before entering the Gulf of California. This article describes most of the major features along the river.
The Marble Canyon Dam, also known as the Redwall Dam, was a proposed dam on the Colorado River in Arizona. The dam was intended to impound a relatively small reservoir in the central portion of Marble Canyon to develop hydroelectric power. Plans centered on two sites between miles 30 and 40 in the canyon. At one point a 38-mile (61 km) tunnel was proposed to a site just outside Grand Canyon National Park to develop the site's full power generation potential, reducing the Colorado River to a trickle through the park.
↑ Eric I. Boime, "Fluid Boundaries: Southern California, Baja California, and the Conflict over the Colorado River, 1848–1944," (Ph.D diss. University of California, San Diego, 2002)
1 2 Van Petten, Donald R. (1942). "Arizona's Stand on the Santa Fe Compact and Boulder Canyon Project Act". New Mexico Historical Review. 17 (1): 8 – via JSTOR.
1 2 3 Hundley, Norris Jr. (1972). "Clio Nods: Arizona v. California and the Boulder Canyon Act-A Reassessment". Western Historical Quarterly. 3 (1): 22. doi:10.2307/967706. JSTOR967706.
1 2 Fleck, John (2016). Water is for Fighting Over. Island Press. p.16.
↑ Parsons, Malcolm B. (1962). "Origins of the Colorado River Compact". Arizona and the West. 4 (1): 31 and 42 – via JSTOR.
↑ Espeland, Wendy (1998). The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American Southwest. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. p.100. ISBN0226217930.
↑ Hundley, Norris (July 2, 1972). "Clio Nods: Arizona v. California and the Boulder Canyon Act – A Reassessment". The Western Historical Quarterly. 3 (1): 17–51. doi:10.2307/967706. JSTOR967706.
1 2 Dana R. Smith and Bonnie Colby (2007). Tribal Water Claims and Settlements within Regional Water Management. Washington, D.C.20: Resources for the Future. pp.206–207. ISBN978-1933115344.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
↑ H. G. Hidalgo, T. C. Piechota, and J. A. Dracup, 2000: Alternative principal components regression procedures for dentrohydrological reconstructions, Water Resources Research v. 36, pp. 3241–3249
↑ C. W. Stockton and G. C. Jacoby, 1976: Long-term surface-water supply and streamflow trends in the Upper Colorado River Basin. Lake Powell Res. Proj. Bulletin no 18, National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA
↑ C. A. Woodhouse, S. T. Gray, and D. M. Meko, 2005: Updated streamflow reconstructions for the Upper Colorado River Basin, Water Resources Research v. 42, W05415, doi:10.1029/2005/WR004455, 2006
↑ National Research Council, Colorado River Basin Water Management, National Academies Press, Jun 1, 2007.
↑ John Fleck, Eric Kuhn (2019). Science be Dammed--How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River. Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press.
Norris Hundley. Water and the West: The Colorado River Compact and the Politics of Water in the American West (University of California Press, 2009) 415 pp. the standard scholarly history; ISBN978-0-520-26011-5
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