Arizona V. California & The Colorado River Compact: Fifty Years Ago, Fifty Years Ahead

Abstract

This Article recounts the background leading Arizona to seek determination of its rights to use the water of the Colorado River in the U.S. Supreme Court, the arguments of Arizona and California, the Special Master’s Report, and the Court’s decision in 1963. It turns to a consideration of the decision’s significance fifty years later. First it considers key developments in the basin since 1963 that are consequences of the decision. It argues that, by disregarding the allocation structure put in place by the 1922 Colorado River Compact and by focusing solely on the main Colorado River, the decision resulted in unsustainable overuse of an increasingly constrained water supply in the Lower Basin.