43 U.S.C. § 617

Colorado River Basin; protection and development; dam, reservoir, and incidental works; water, water power, and electrical energy; eminent domain

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For the purpose of controlling the floods, improving navigation, and regulating the flow of the Colorado River, providing for storage and for the delivery of the stored waters thereof for reclamation of public lands and other beneficial uses exclusively within the United States, and for the generation of electrical energy as a means of making the project herein authorized a self-supporting and financially solvent undertaking, the Secretary of the Interior subject to the terms of the Colorado River compact hereinafter mentioned in this chapter, is authorized to construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon adequate to create a storage reservoir of a capacity of not less than twenty million acre-feet of water and a main canal and appurtenant structures located entirely within the United States connecting the Laguna Dam, or other suitable diversion dam, which the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to construct if deemed necessary or advisable by him upon engineering or economic considerations, with the Imperial and Coachella Valleys in California, the expenditures for said main canal and appurtenant structures to be reimbursable, as provided in the reclamation law, and shall not be paid out of revenues derived from the sale or disposal of water power or electric energy at the dam authorized to be constructed at said Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon, or for water for potable purposes outside of the Imperial and Coachella Valleys: Provided, however, That no charge shall be made for water for the use, storage, or delivery of water for irrigation or water for potable purposes in the Imperial or Coachella Valleys; also to construct and equip, operate, and maintain at or near said dam, or cause to be constructed, a complete plant and incidental structures suitable for the fullest economic development of electrical energy from the water discharged from said reservoir; and to acquire by proceedings in eminent domain, or otherwise, all lands, rights-of-way, and other property necessary for said purposes.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 60 cases (6 in the last 5 years), 1933–2025 · leading case: Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605 (1983).
Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605 (1983). · cites it 4× “1057 , as amended, 43 U. S. C. § 617 et seq. (1976 ed. and Supp.”
Navajo Nation v. Dep't of the Interior, 876 F.3d 1144 (9th Cir. 2017). · cites it 2× “The Act conditionally approved the 1922 Compact and authorized the Secretary of the Interior to construct a massive dam at Boulder Canyon (now the Hoover Dam) and the attendant water delivery infrastructure (a reservoir, now Lake Mead, and delivery canals) to effectuate the…”
Arizona v. California, 530 U.S. 392 (2000). · cites it 2× “The first round of the litigation culminated in our opinion in Arizona I.”
California v. United States, 438 U.S. 645 (1978). · cites it 2× “[28] After reviewing the legislative history of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, 43 U. S. C. § 617 et seq., the Court concluded that because of the unique size and multistate scope of the Project, Congress did not intend the States to interfere with the Secretary's power to…”
Bryant v. Yellen, 447 U.S. 352 (1980). · cites it 2× “1057 , 43 U. S. C. § 617 et seg. (Project Act), became effective in 1929, a large area in Imperial Valley, Cal.”
Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546 (1963). · cites it 2× “[8] Department of the Interior, Report of the All-American Canal Board (1919), 23-33.”
Quantification Settlement Agreement Cases, 42 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20354 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011). “) Following the enactment of the Boulder Canyon Project Act ( 43 U.S.C. § 617 et seq.), disputes continued between the states over their respective rights to Colorado River water.”
Consejo De Desarrollo Economico De Mexicali, A.C. v. United States, 482 F.3d 1157 (9th Cir. 2007). · cites it 2× “1057 , codified at 43 U.S.C. § 617 . Construction of the canal by the United States Bureau of Reclamation commenced in 1934 following the construction of the Hoover Dam, with the project reaching completion in 1942.”
Bd. of the Cnty. Commissioners v. Crystal Creek Homeowners' Ass'n, 14 P.3d 325 (Colo. 2000). · cites it 2× “See 43 U.S.C. §§ 617 -619b (1994). In addition to authorizing the Compact, the Boulder Act authorized both the construction of the Hoover Dam, the major reservoir in the Lower Basin, and the All American Canal to benefit the Imperial Valley.”
Arizona v. Navajo Nation, 599 U.S. 555 (2023). “1057 , codifed at 43 U. S. C. §§ 617–619b. That Act had a profound impact on the Lower Basin.”
PCL Constr. Servs., Inc. v. United States, 41 Fed. Cl. 242 (Fed. Cl. 1998). · cites it 3× “1057 , codified as amended, 43 U.S.C. § 617 et seq. (1994). See also H.”
California ex rel. Imperial Cnty. Air Pollution Control Dist. v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior, 767 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. 2014). “1057 (codified as amended at 43 U.S.C. §§ 617 -619b). California, Arizona, and Nevada are the lower-basin states.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.