INTERSTATE WATER ALLOCATION COMPACTS IN THE WESTERN UNITED STATES ‐ SOME SUGGESTIONS1

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Abstract
Agreements between states, or compacts, provide a mechanism for resolving transboundary resource issues. The twenty‐two compacts allocating the water of rivers among states in the western United States are examined to provide guidance for drafters of future compacts. The method of allocation selected for a compact reflects the state's allocation of the risk of dry years. Allocations based on models have been unsuccessful. Percentage allocations are good for fairly apportioning risk, but conflict with principles of prior appropriation. Guarantees of minimum flows should be used with great care, to avoid any state becoming a guarantor of natural phenomena over which it has no control. Disputes should be anticipated, and a dispute resolution mechanism agreed upon. Arbitration or litigation are likely to prove the most politically acceptable. Compacts should be comprehensive in scope, encompassing groundwater as well as surface use. Federal claims should also be addressed, and some form of protection from subsequent changes of federal policy should be incorporated in the agreement and its ratifying legislation.

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