Title 43 › Chapter 32— COLORADO RIVER BASIN PROJECT › Subchapter III— AUTHORIZED UNITS; PROTECTION OF EXISTING USES › § 1524
Central Arizona Project water must not be used to irrigate land that has not been recently irrigated, as the Secretary decides, except for Indian lands, national wildlife refuges, and State-run wildlife management areas if the Secretary agrees. In Arizona, irrigation and city/industrial water may be supplied under master contracts with agencies that can tax property, and the Secretary must approve the terms. The United States can require it be a party to those contracts or to separate contracts with users. These rules do not apply when supplying water to an Indian tribe inside its reservation. Repayment or delivery obligations can run for up to 50 years. Long-term irrigation contracts can allow unused irrigation water to be used for municipal or industrial needs. Contracts must include measures to control growth of groundwater irrigation and must have lined canals to prevent big water losses. All Central Arizona Project contracts must not interfere with earlier contracts made under the Boulder Canyon Project Act. The Secretary can require water exchanges that swap main-stream water for other supplies, and must do so for Arizona users who also use Gila River water when needed to make water available to New Mexico users, as long as Arizona users suffer no economic harm or cost. In shortages, users who gave up other supplies in exchange get first priority for main-stream water, but only enough to replace what they gave up. The Secretary must offer New Mexico, with approval of its Interstate Stream Commission, up to an annual average of 14,000 acre-feet of consumptive use over any 10 consecutive years (including reservoir evaporation) from the Gila River system above the uses already allowed by the Arizona v. California decree. Those additional uses continue only while Colorado River deliveries to downstream Gila users in Arizona are maintained under this chapter and only to the extent they replace any loss to Arizona users. The Secretary must consider water quality differences, and the extra uses are subject to and ranked after rights fixed by the June 29, 1935 decree (United States v. Gila Valley) and all water rights that existed on September 30, 1968, and may be allowed only if they do not cause economic injury or cost to holders of those earlier rights.
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Public Lands — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
43 U.S.C. § 1524
Title 43 — Public Lands
Last Updated
Apr 5, 2026
Release point: 119-73not60