THIS IS A REPRINT OF CHAPTER 2 of NEW COURSES FOR THE COLORADO
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO PRESS, 1996 
With permission by the author and publisher

The West Against Itself: The Colorado River - An Institutional History 
by Norris Hundley, Jr. 
 
"River of Controversy" might have been the name if the Spanish explorers could have foreseen the many bitter conflicts over the Colorado. But their attention focused naturally on what first caught their eye, and they christened the river with a name reflecting the ruddy color produced by the enormous quantities of silt-more such sediment than carried   by all but a handful of the world's streams. Like the Indians who knew the Colorado   by other names and had relied on its waters since time immemorial, the Spaniards,   a people from a water-shy country, recognized at once the river's critical importance   to the area, although they could only guess at the size of the drainage basin-practically   the entire lower left-hand corner of the present United States.  

From its headwaters high in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, the Colorado meanders 1,400 miles and is the sole dependable water supply for 244,000 square miles, an area embracing parts of seven western states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California) and Mexico. Though the watershed is vast, the Colorado is not a heavy flowing stream, ranking about sixth among the nation's rivers and having an average annual volume of less than fifteen million acre-feet. This is only a thirty-third that of the Mississippi and a twelfth that of the Columbia, but this modest flow became in the twentieth century the most disputed body of water 
in the country and probably in the world. The controversies extended far beyond the basin and involved great population centers that have built or are seeking  to build aqueducts hundreds of miles long to develop the farms, cities, and   industries of Denver and eastern Colorado, Salt Lake City and western Utah,   Albuquerque and central New Mexico, and especially the vast megalopolis of Southern   California stretching from north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border. Over   the years the drive for water significantly altered the
appearance and quality   of the Colorado's flow, forced domestic and international agreements that sometimes   harmonized and just as often exacerbated relations among water users, and created   a legacy of laws, court decisions, and water-use patterns that continue to influence the lives of millions of people in the United States and Mexico. 
 
Contents   
Genesis of an Idea: Arthur Powell Davis   
Imperial Valley and the All-American Canal   
Enter Los Angeles   
A Six-State Pact   
Arizona Overwhelmed: The Boulder Canyon Act    
"Arizona V. California: Round One"   
 The Mexican Water Treaty    
 Upper Basin Compact: Harbinger of Development   
"Arizona V. California: Round Two"   
"Arizona V, California" and the American Indian   
The CAP: Catalyst for Basinwide Development   
Salinity Controversy with Mexico   
Retrospect 
Notes 
 
Genesis of an Idea:   Arthur Powell Davis 
For hundreds of thousands of
years,   the Colorado and its network of tributaries flowed without interruption
to the   sea. For a much shorter span, but one still measured in thousands of
years,   societies made their homes along the watercourses without appreciably
changing   either river or basin. The coming of the Spaniards in the sixteenth
century,   Mexico's short hegemony nearly three hundred years later, and the
American conquest   in the mid-nineteenth century scarcely altered the
waterscape. The twentieth   century, however, brought dramatic change as
hundreds of thousands of newcomers   poured into the Southwest and turned their
energies toward developing the region's   scarce water supplies. 
Among the earliest advocates of  
large-scale development of the Colorado River was Arthur Powell Davis, nephew  
of the famous explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell. Davis was not the first
   to advance a sweeping plan, but as a prominent engineer in the U.S. Geological
   Survey and later in the Reclamation Service, he possessed the skills and
connections   to draw public attention to the proposal that he first unveiled in
1902. What   he sought, he told his fellow engineers, was "the gradual
comprehensive development   of the Colorado River by a series of large storage
reservoirs." The keystone   was to be a dam on the lower river built "as high as
appears practicable from   the local conditions."1 
Davis was driven by more than an  
engineer's natural desire to be associated with one of the world's great
technological   feats. He shared with Henry George and other reformers of the
day a concern   about the demoralizing effects of land monopoly, the end of the
frontier, and   urban crime, poverty, and unemployment. While many Americans
pointed with pride   to growing cities and industries, Davis worried about the
seemingly precipitous   decline in public morality and advocated a return to the
values associated with   the independent yeoman farmer so idealized by Thomas
Jefferson.2 To Davis, revitalization   of the nation's moral fiber lay in
getting more people to work the soil, and   a major means to that end would be
the reclamation of western lands mistakenly   considered useless by many because
of lack of water. The task, he recognized,   would be enormous, so great and so
expensive that only the federal government   could overcome the obstacles and
provide the necessary overall planning. And   the place to begin, he believed,
was the Colorado River. "I . . . considered   problems in all of the Western
States," he later recalled, "but there [was]   . . . none which. . . excited my
interest and imagination and ambition so much   as the development of the
Colorado River Basin. "3 
Davis found a vehicle for his
ideas   in the newly created Reclamation Service, but lack of funds and
mercurial public   support prevented headway for nearly two decades. Then
Californians, first in   the Imperial Valley and later in Los Angeles and
eventually throughout Southern   California, endorsed his plans and set in
motion a series of events that profoundly   affected the Colorado River Basin.

    
Imperial
   Valley and the All-American Canal 
Settlers in California's Imperial 
  Valley, an arid but enormously fertile area of 600,000 acres just north of the 
  Mexican border, only slowly became interested in Davis's ambitious scheme.
Rather   than dams, they wanted a canal-an "All-American Canal," as they called
it-that   would free them from their dependence on Mexico and assure them enough
water   to develop their lands. Because of a ridge of sandhills separating the
valley   from the Colorado, water had been brought in by diverting it south of
the border   through an old overflow channel of the river. The price exacted by
Mexico for   this privilege was stiff-the right to take up to half of the
diverted water.4    
At first the price seemed
tolerable.   Mexican development proceeded slowly while that in the Imperial
Valley boomed   following the introduction of water in 1901. By 1916 more than
300,000 acres   were under cultivation, and valley leaders had plans to expand
production even   further.5 But by this time the entire river would occasionally
be diverted,   especially during the critical low-flow months of summer, and
even taking the   whole stream often produced insufficient water. While Mexico's
water needs remained   considerably less than those of US farmers, the reduced
flow crossing the line   still meant rationing of water in the valley. Alarmed
by the threat to their   crops and convinced that the situation would
deteriorate as Mexico expanded   its own agriculture, valley farmers began
demanding a delivery system wholly   in the US Their clamor grew louder in
response to unsettled conditions below   the border created by the Mexican
Revolution of 1910, refusal of Mexican landowners   to share the cost of levees
to protect the delivery system, and the duties imposed   on equipment used in
protective work below the line. Especially galling to valley   farmers was the
disclosure that the largest single landholder on the Mexican   side was a
syndicate controlled by Los Angeles businessmen, the most prominent   of whom
was Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. "These Mexican   . . .
lands," complained valley residents, "menace us like a great sponge, which  
threatens to absorb more and more water, until such time as they will take all  
of the natural flow of the river. "6 
Unable to finance a new canal by  
themselves, valley farmers in 1917 turned to Washington for help. Operating  
through the Imperial Irrigation District, a powerful and well-organized public  
agency in charge of the valley's water system, they persuaded the Secretary   of
the Interior to investigate the feasibility of an All-American Canal and   two
years later got Congressman William Kettner to introduce a bill authorizing  
construction of the aqueduct.7 
The Kettner Bill immediately
attracted   the attention of Arthur Powell Davis, who saw it as an opportunity
to lobby   for his own river development plans. The canal, he told the bill's
advocates,   would be impractical by itself. It would be at the mercy of the
floods that   annually menaced settlements along the river and from 1905 to 1907
had actually   broken into the Imperial Valley, destroying fields and homes and
creating the   Salton Sea. But "if we had complete storage," he observed, "the
flood menace   would be removed." To Davis the issue was clear-cut: "The
Imperial Valley problem    . . is inseparably linked with the problem of
water storage in the Colorado   Basin as a whole. "8 
Strong endorsements of Davis's
position   came from the engineering team sent by the Secretary of the Interior
to investigate   the canal's feasibility, from groups supporting the
back-to-land movement, and   from the League of the Southwest, a highly vocal
booster organization representing   scores of businesses and local governments.
Imperial Valley leaders at first   resisted tying the canal to a more grandiose
and complicated project, but finally   they surrendered to the force of logic
and to the pressure from Davis and others.   In 1920 they joined with Davis to
promote passage of the Kincaid Act, which   authorized the government to secure
needed field data about the canal and storage   sites.9  These events did
not go unnoticed elsewhere.
    
Enter   Los Angeles 
Among those following closely the 
  maneuvering in Washington were Los Angeles officials, especially blunt-spoken  
William Mulholland, chief of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply, and E. F.  
Scattergood, head of the Bureau of Power and Light. They had spent their lives  
working to ensure that the city had all the water and electricity that it
needed.   For a community that had grown by nearly 600 percent during the two
decades   after 1900, this had been no small accomplishment. The city had fought
successfully   to gain control of the Los Angeles River, the major local supply,
and in 1913   had completed a 233-mile-long aqueduct to the Owens River. 10 By
1920 as the   Los Angeles population approached 600,000, Mulholland and
Scattergood were turning   their attention to the Colorado. 
Of concern to city leaders at
first   was electricity rather than water. The aqueduct to the Owens Valley
seemed to   guarantee a plentiful water supply, but experts predicted a power
shortage within   three to five years. Mulholland and Scattergood warned that
local plant construction   would only temporarily postpone, not prevent, a
shortage. They advocated as   a solution Arthur Powell Davis's proposal for a
dam on the Colorado River. Told   that a hydroelectric plant at the dam could
provide the city with enough power   for "all future needs," the city council
required little persuasion. In August   1920, it endorsed Davis's plan and
boldly proclaimed the city's intention to   obtain power "direct from the
Colorado River. "11 
The Los Angeles action delighted  
Davis and his new allies from the Imperial Valley, but another city decision   a
few years later pleased them even more. In 1923 a dry cycle prompted Los Angeles
   to look to the Colorado for water as well as electricity. Such a venture would
   require special diversion dams, an aqueduct even longer than the one to Owens 
  Valley, and pumping stations to raise water over the mountains separating the  
city from the river. The undertaking was too costly for the city alone. In 1924 
  Los Angeles leaders negotiated with nearby communities for the creation of the 
  Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). Three years later  
the state legislature approved the new agency and authorized it "to provide   a
supplemental water supply to the coastal plain of Southern California. "12  
These steps placed Los Angeles and the twenty-six other agencies that eventually
   joined MWD squarely alongside Davis and the Imperial Valley in their quest to 
  develop the Colorado River.
    
Upper
   Basin Alarm and the Colorado River Compact 
Long before Los Angeles entered  
into an alliance with MWD, leaders in the Colorado River Basin outside of
California   had become troubled. All recognized that the future development of
their areas   depended heavily on the Colorado, and they watched uneasily the
advances being   made by a state that contributed the least amount of runoff to
the river. 
Particularly disturbed were
residents   in the upper portion of the basin where the growing season was
shorter and the   lands less easily watered than in California or Arizona. The
upper states wanted   reclamation projects of their own, including some that
would benefit areas outside   the basin, especially in western Utah and eastern
Colorado. Denver, for example,   like Los Angeles, lay outside the basin and had
grown rapidly if not as spectacularly   as the southern California city. From a
population of 134,000 in 1900, it had   nearly doubled in size by 1920 and was
threatening to precipitate a water war   with its neighbors. "The most serious
problem that confronts us at this time,"   warned a Denver official, "is the
future water supply. Unless a construction   program is formulated . . . that
will bring to Denver and the agricultural communities   surrounding it more
water . . . , any great future growth in Denver's population   must be made at
the expense of the agricultural communities surrounding it."13    
Heightening such concern
throughout   the Upper Basin were a series of events in early 1922. The first
occurred in   February when the Interior Department issued the long-awaited
study called for   by the Kincaid Act. Known as the Fall-Davis Report-named for
Secretary of the   Interior Albert Fall and Arthur Powell Davis; who was now
head of the Reclamation   Bureau-it recommended construction of an All-American
Canal, a storage reservoir   "at or near Boulder Canyon," and the development of
hydroelectric power to repay   the cost of the dam. 14 The next development that
disconcerted the upper states   took place in April, when Congressman Phil Swing
from the Imperial Valley and   Senator Hiram Johnson of California introduced a
bill to implement the report's   recommendations. This Boulder Canyon, or Swing-
Johnson, bill met with immediate   hostility from Upper Basin representative,
who mounted a vigorous campaign against   it. 15 
Still another cause for alarm in  
the upper states occurred two months later. This involved western water law,  
specifically the doctrine of prior appropriation which gave legal entitlement  
to the first person using water-"first in time, first in right. "This principle 
  was recognized within each basin state, but uncertainty existed over whether  
it applied to users in two or more states on a common stream. In June 1922 the  
US Supreme Court, in Wyoming v. Colorado, eliminated all doubt by announcing  
that the rule of priority applied regardless of state lines. 16 Now even the  
law seemed to favor faster-growing states like California. Upper Basin leaders  
responded to the decision by reaffirming adamant opposition to all reclamation  
on the lower Colorado until their own interests were safeguarded. 
The leader in defining those
interests   and in devising a protective strategy was Delph Carpenter of
Colorado. A brilliant   and prominent attorney with years of experience in water
litigation, he had   long advocated compacts or treaties to resolve interstate
disputes. Although   no states had demonstrated the practicality of his idea by
apportioning water   among themselves, Carpenter believed that the usual
recourse to litigation was   a mistake-it was too costly, too time-consuming,
and invariably it created more   issues than it resolved. His participation in
Colorado's lengthy Supreme Court   battle with Wyoming had reinforced these
views as had the claims of federal   attorneys that the US owned all the
unappropriated waters in the West's streams.   If the states did not put their
houses in order, he feared that the federal   government might do it for them,
thus "weakening . . . state autonomy on all   rivers. "17 
In 1920, at a meeting of the
League   of the Southwest, Carpenter called for a compact covering the Colorado
River.   It was an idea whose time had come. The League enthusiastically
endorsed his   proposal, as did the legislatures of all the basin states. In
August 1921 Congress   consented to the negotiation of a compact. 18 Because the
river was an international   stream and considered navigable, the federal
government sent to the negotiations   its own representative, the highly
respected Secretary of Commerce, Herbert   Hoover. The delegates, now dubbed the
Colorado River Commission, invited Hoover   to chair the sessions which began in
January 1922. 
The commissioners spent most of  
1922 in fruitless bargaining. They wrangled incessantly, each trying to ensure  
his state all the water it might need while refusing a similar concession to  
the others. Finally convinced that they would be unable to settle on a specific 
  volume of water for each state, they decided to concentrate instead on
apportioning   the river between the upper and lower sections of the basin. 19
But even that   decision was more easily reached than implemented. It rested on
the assumption   that the needs of groups of states could be pegged more easily
than those of   individual states, and it ignored the possibility of serious
conflicts among   the states within each basin. Nonetheless, it set the stage
for the final round   of talks scheduled for November 1922 in New Mexico.
 
Great pressure for a settlement  
permeated the negotiations which began on November 9 at Bishop's Lodge, a posh  
resort near Santa Fe. Californians were driven by their desire for the
Swing-Johnson   Bill, which had been bottled up in Congress by Upper Basin
representatives in   control of key reclamation committees. Upper Basin leaders
feared that if they   did not negotiate a water supply for themselves, a
disastrous flood on the lower   river might stampede Congress into giving
Californians the legislation that   they wanted. "We simply must use every
endeavor to bring about a compact . .   ," pleaded Delph Carpenter, "otherwise .
. . we may never again have a like   opportunity. "20 
Carpenter had taken the lead in  
seeking a settlement by circulating, prior to the Santa Fe meeting, a draft  
proposal allocating the Colorado's waters equally to the Upper and Lower basins.
   He established the demarcation point between the basins at Lee's Ferry, an old
   river-crossing station located in northern Arizona's canyon lands not far from
   the Utah border. While the boundary thus placed parts of several states in
both   basins, the Upper Basin consisted mainly of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and
New   Mexico and the Lower Basin of Arizona, California, and Nevada. 
Discussion of Carpenter's proposal
   began on an ominous note. Most delegates considered it appealing, but W. S.  
Norviel of Arizona strongly objected and very nearly brought the proceedings  
to an end. He sharply criticized the plan for charging the Lower Basin for the  
water in its tributaries. Though estimates varied, most experts believed those  
tributaries produced a significant runoff-some two to three million
acre-feet-with   virtually all of it coming from Arizona streams. Norvie~
demanded for the Lower   Basin all the water in the tributaries, in addition to
half the river's flow   as measured at Lee's Ferry. He would have preferred that
Arizona's tributaries   be given specifically to the state, but recognized that
the decision to apportion   water to basins instead of individual states
precluded such an allocation. Besides,   he felt Arizona had nothing to fear
from the other Lower Basin state~ Nevada   and California. Nevada's water
requests had always been minimal, while California's   "ultimate development,"
he believed, was ''definitely well-known'' and posed   no threat to Arizona. 21
 
For days Norviel tenaciously
defended   his counterproposal, as first one delegate and then another advanced
alternatives   and sought to bring the conflicting parties together. His
intransigence gradually   gave way as he found himself standing alone against
the pressure for a compromise   settlement. The agreement to which he and the
others finally gave their approval   foresaw the delivery of 7.5 million
acre-feet per year to each basin. Since   the bulk of the water originated in
the Upper Basin, however, the compact required   the upper states to deliver
seventy-five million acre-feet at Lee's Ferry every   ten years. The ten-year
provision allowed the Upper Basin to take advantage   of the sometimes severe
fluctuations in river flow. In addition to the basic   allocation to each basin,
the lower states could increase their apportionment   by a million acre-feet.
This provision reflected Norviel's insistence that the   Lower Basin receive
compensation for the water in its tributaries. The amount   was considerably
less than he had sought but high enough to win his grudging   approval of the
agreement. 22 
The negotiators grounded their
water-allocation   formula on the Reclamation Bureau's assumption that the
average annual flow   of the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry was 16.4 million
acre-feet. There was no   gauging station at Lee's Ferry and this estimate
derived from measurements made   hundreds of miles downstream at Yuma. It also
ignored years of unusually low   flow prior to 1905. Nonetheless, the strong
desire for a settlement caused no   one to challenge the accuracy of the
Bureau's estimate-an estimate that indicated   1.4 million acre-feet remained in
the main stream as surplus for later allocation.   23 
The few remaining issues were
dealt   with quickly. The delegates easily agreed to give highest priority to
water   use for "agricultural and domestic purposes." Hydroelectric power came
in for   a lesser priority and navigation was made "subservient" to all other
uses.24   As for a possible future treaty with Mexico, the delegates concluded
that any   such obligation should be met with surplus water, and if that proved
insufficient,   then the two basins should share equally the burden. This
provision reflected   a desire to cover an important contingency rather than
sympathy for people in   Mexico. "We do not believe they ever had any rights,"
observed Herbert Hoover.   25 The Indians in the Colorado River Basin hardly
fared better. Their rights   were considered "negligible" and were dealt with
perfunctorily in what Hoover   called the "wild Indian article": "Nothing in
this compact shall be construed   as affecting the obligations of the United
States of America to Indian tribes.   "26 
On Friday, November 24,1922, after
   fifteen days of bargaining, the delegates reached agreement on the compact.  
They adjourned to Santa Fe where formal signing took place in the Palace of  
the Governors amid much fanfare and self-congratulation. 27
    

A   Six-State Pact 
The euphoria at Santa Fe was short
   lived. Within five months every state had ratified the compact except Arizona,
   but Arizonaís refusal threatened to scuttle the enterprise since only
unanimous   approval would make the pact effective. Norviel had returned home to
find a   new governor in office whose views and those of his closest advisers
were hostile   to the agreement. "Arizona cannot afford to plunge blindly into a
contract that   may be unfair to her," Governor George W. P. Hunt cautioned the
state legislature.28   When studies completed a short time later suggested that
Arizona might need   the entire Lower Basin allotment to develop lands in the
central part of the   state, Hunt's position hardened. To him, opposition to the
compact now became   a test of state loyalty. He received strong support from
private utility firms,   which were alarmed that the pact would pave the way for
the Boulder Canyon legislation   and the construction of competing public power
facilities. Powerful mining interests   chorused their opposition because a
public power plant would operate tax free.   Since mining companies were
shouldering nearly half the Arizona tax load, they   would obtain no relief if
the power plants to be built along the lower river   and partially in Arizona
were tax exempt. 
But the major concern was water.  
Hunt believed the compact's "first fundamental error" was its failure to make  
allocations to individual states.29 By suspending the law of prior appropriation
   between the basins, the compact would protect the Upper Basin from California;
   but it did nothing to safeguard Arizona from California. The principle of
priority   would still prevail among the Lower Basin states. This posed no
problem for   Nevada whose small needs were readily conceded by Arizona and
California, but   Arizonans became extremely cautious and then alarmed as they
discovered potential   uses for water and hydroelectricity not anticipated
earlier. That alarm intensified   when Californians, especially those associated
with the Metropolitan Water District,   made similar discoveries. Arizonans
found additional reason for concern in the   promise of Upper Basin leaders to
withdraw their opposition to the Boulder Canyon   Bill once the compact was in
force. Enactment of the Boulder Canyon legislation   would immeasurably aid
California by authorizing the All-American Canal and   especially the high dam
that would regulate the river and permit the MWD to   build its own aqueduct and
transmission lines. Arizonans, on the other hand,   saw virtually nothing for
themselves in the measure. A dam in Boulder Canyon   would benefit few Arizona
lands unless other expensive works were also constructed-works   viewed by most
experts at the time as economically unfeasible and for which   there was no
enthusiasm in Congress. Arizonans also worried about what they   called the
"Mexican threat." A regulated river would enable Mexico to expand   its
agriculture, and a future treaty might recognize the increased water uses.   Put
simply, Arizonans feared there would be little water remaining for them   after
the Upper Basin, California, and Mexico got what they wanted. Those fears,  
together with Arizona s own ambitious plans for the Colorado, translated soon  
into implacable opposition to both the compact and the Boulder Canyon
legislation.   30 
Arizona's refusal to ratify the  
compact prompted the other basin states to reassess their earlier insistence  
on approval by all seven basin states. Delph Carpenter took the lead in
campaigning   vigorously for a six-state agreement. Some Upper Basin leaders
worried about   endorsing a compact to which Arizona would not be a party, but
Carpenter persuaded   them that no practical alternative existed. Because
California and Arizona were   constantly reevaluating their earlier water needs
as too small, it would be   folly to attempt to renegotiate the pact and
allocate water to each state, as   Arizonans were insisting. As a nonsigner,
Arizona might try to develop projects   that would encroach on the Upper Basin
allocation, but success in such a venture   would require Washington's approval.
The federal government had reserved all   the possible dam sites along Arizona's
canyons and was unlikely to release any   of them without approval of the other
basin states. "If the compact were agreed   to as binding upon the United States
and the six states which have already ratified,"   reasoned Carpenter, "it would
in large measure serve the desired purpose. .   . .î 31 
 Carpenter's logic proved
persuasive.   By March 1925 all the upper states and Nevada in the Lower Basin
had approved   the six-state arrangement. That left only California.
Californians favored the   reduced requirement for ratification, but only if
through it they could absolutely   assure themselves the Boulder Canyon Project.
Earlier at Santa Fe, they had   sought to have such an assurance written into
the compact itself, but that had   been considered inappropriate. Now, grown
weary of waiting for congressional   action, they sought that assurance through
a different approach. Assemblyman   A. C. Finney of the Imperial Valley
introduced a resolution in the state legislature   making California's approval
of the six-state pact dependent upon construction   of a high dam on the lower
river. Passage of the resolution in April 1925 shifted   the major battlefield
over the Co~Colorado River to Congress.32
    
Arizona
   Overwhelmed: The Boulder Canyon Act 
In late 1925, when Phil Swing and 
  Hiram Johnson reintroduced in Congress their Boulder Canyon legislation, they  
included the compact among its provisions. In this way, congressional approval  
of the compact would mean authorization of lower-river development as well.  
Swing and Johnson subsequently added other inducements calculated to broaden  
support-royalties on power to be divided equally between Arizona and Nevada  
(in lieu of the taxes that those states would collect if the project were built 
  by private capital) and funds authorizing the. investigation of possible
reclamation   projects in every basin state except California. 33 
 Congress at first balked at 
  the measure1 bowing not only to Arizona's protests but also to those of
easterners   and others unsympathetic to expensive reclamation and public power
projects.   In addition, many legislators felt that Arizona and California
should be given   more time to resolve their differences and to negotiate a
Lower Basin apportionment   of water. Such opposition lessened over the next two
years as both states persisted   in their refusal to reach agreement and as
Californians launched~ a campaign   dramatically highlighting the flood dangers
and water and power needs along   the lower river. 
 Upper Basin leaders were
pleased   that the Boulder Canyon Bill included the compact among its
provisions, but   their earlier anxieties returned as the prolonged debates on
the measure rekindled   their fears of both California and Arizona and
reawakened their earlier preference   for a seven-state compact. They finally
agreed to support the bill, but only   if California would promise to limit its
use of Colorado River water. Without   such a limitation, California could be
expected to increase its uses until little   remained for Arizona. That state,
in turn, would obviously do everything possible   to develop projects of its
own-projects that would take water meant for the   Upper Basin. Arizona would
have to overcome serious economic and political obstacles   to build such
projects, but so long as the state possessed even a remote chance   of doing so,
the Upper Basin felt threatened. If, on the other hand, California   would li~t
itself and leave a significant volume of Lower Basin water for Arizona,   then
the threat to the Upper Basin would be reduced considerably. "The States   of
the upper-basin much prefer a "seven-state compact," observed a Colorado  
congressman, "but they desire a compact of some kind, and with a provision under
   which one of the lower basin States-California- practically steps into the
position   of guarantor, so that the upper-basin [states] would be reasonably
assured .   . . that they could go ahead safely in developing their irrigation
enterprises.   "34 
 California agreed, but only 
  reluctantly and after much haggling over the precise restriction on its uses.  
Congress finally settled on 4.4 million acre-feet plus no more than half of  
any surplus water unapportioned by the compact. Congress then went further in  
trying to harmonize basin rivalries by adding still another provision to the  
Boulder Canyon Bill giving prior approval to a Lower Basin pact. The suggested  
agreement would apportion 0.3 million acre-feet to Nevada, 4.4 million acre-feet
   and half the surplus to California, and 2.8 million acre-feet plus half the  
surplus to Arizona. In addition, all the waters of the Gila (Arizona's principal
   Colorado tributary) would go to Arizona and be exempted from any future
Mexican   treaty. Many objected to the proposal as an infringement on states'
rights,   but its author disagreed, insisting that it was merely a suggestion
and "not   the request of the Congress." "If California and Nevada and Arizona
do not like   this agreement," he explained, "they do not have to approve it.
"35 With that   assurance, the proposal won adoption and paved the way for a
final vote on the   bill. 
 Over Arizona's continued
vigorous   objections, Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Bill in December
1928. Two   months later the California legislature agreed to the limitation
imposed by   Congress and on June 25, 1929, President Herbert Hoover declared
the act effective.36   
    
ìArizona
   V. California: Round One" 
 Enactment of the Boulder
Canyon   legislation meant approval of the Colorado River Compact and
authorization of   the All-American Canal and a high dam on the lower river.
Under the terms of   the new law, construction of the dam could not begin until
the federal government   had obtained contracts for the hydroelectric power
needed to pay for the project.   Since Nevada had no market for Boulder Canyon
power and Arizona had neither   a market nor a desire for one, Californians in
1930 obligated themselves to   purchase all the electricity and thereby
underwrite the cost of the dam and   power plant. The contracts permitted the
federal government to draw back 36   percent of the power for use in Arizona and
Nevada any time during the fifty   years required to pay for the project, but
until the two states asked for power,   California agencies had to take all of
it.37 
 The Great Depression of the 
  1930s slowed construction, hut in 1935 Hoover Dam was completed (in more
suitable   Black Canyon, rather than in Boulder Canyon as originally planned)
and a year   later hydroelectric power reached southern California communities.
In June 1941   the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California began
delivering water   to the coastal plain, and the next Imperial Valley residents
received their   first supplies through the All-American Canal. Californians
delighted in these   developments, which during the next three decades flowed
Los Angeles to grow   to three million inhabitants and the four coastal counties
to attract a population   in excess of ten million.35 
 Arizonans looked angrily on 
  California's rapid growth. Their state also grew during the same period, but  
the increases in people and economic development paled in comparison to those  
of California which they accused of taking water that rightly belonged to them. 
  At first Arizonans returned to the negotiating table and tried to hammer out  
a Lower Basin compact with California, but the two states repeatedly failed   to
harmonize their differences and neither state was satisfied with the pact  
suggested by Congress in the Boulder Canyon Act. 
 When bargaining collapsed,  
Arizonans turned to the US Supreme Court for help. In 1930 in the first of a  
series of Arizona v. California cases, they asked the courts to declare
unconstitutional   the Boulder Canyon Act because it violated Arizona's
"quasi-sovereign rights"   by authorizing construction of a dam partially in
Arizona without the state's   permission. Congress's claim that it had acted to
improve navigation was a "subterfuge   and false pretense." The Court was
unimpressed: authorization of the dam came   clearly within the government's
power to improve navigation and represented   a "valid exercise of the
Constitutional power. "39 Four years later Arizonans   returned to the Court and
asked it to certify for later use some oral testimony   on the meaning of
certain sections of the Colorado River Compact. They planned   to use the
testimony in a future suit against California. Again the Court disappointed  
them: "The meaning of the Compact . . . can never be material . . . since
Arizona   refused to ratify. "40 Still unwilling to admit defeat, Arizonans
turned once   more to the Court a year later. In 1935 they asked for a judicial
apportionment   of the lower Colorado in which Arizona would receive an
"equitable share of   the water." But, as before, the justices threw out the
case. The technical reason   was Arizona's failure to make the US government a
party to the suit. Yet even   if the US had been included, the Court left little
doubt that the outcome would   have been the same. Unless Arizona could show
that it was actually being deprived   of water to which it held title, there
would be no "justifiable controversy."41   With hundreds of millions of gallons
flowing unused in the river, Arizona stood   little chance of demonstrating that
harm had been done. 
 Convinced at last that the  
Court would not provide a satisfactory solution, Arizonans reopened bargaining  
with California. But here, too, the old patterns of intransigence reemerged.  
Arizonans had not endeared themselves to their rival when in 1933 they had sent 
  their National Guard to prevent construction of MWD's diversion works on the  
Colorado. The shutdown proved temporary, but the incident had hardened
differences   that became further embittered as first one and then another of
California's   projects were completed. 42 By the early 1 940s the accumulated
setbacks prompted   some leading Arizo-nans to reassess the state's water
policy-a policy. grounded   on opposition to the Colorado River Compact. 

 California's advances
naturally   played a role in Arizona thinking, but so, too, did developments at
home. The   state's population had more than doubled in the two decades
following the drafting   of the compact. By 1944 the number of people stood at
700,000 with most of them   congregated in the central part of the state near
the rapidly growing cities   of Phoenix and Tucson. Local water supplies were
inadequate for the growth envisaged   by state leaders, and in some places wells
had gone dry while in others pumping   had led to land subsidence. 
 Electricity was in even
shorter   supply than water. In 1939 the Bureau of Reclamation responded to
Arizona's   plea for emergency power by establishing a line to Hoover Dam.43
 
 Arizona's decision to accept
   Hoover Dam electricity marked a major change in the state's policy. Leaders  
had delayed taking power as long as possible on the grounds that doing so would 
  compromise their opposition to the. compact. They had found support for such  
resistance from private power companies that were not anxious to compete with  
cheaper public power. But the need for electricity proved eventually too strong 
  to resist. In time so did the desire for water. Many Arizonans began arguing  
that if the state was to win support in Congress for reclamation projects of  
its own, Arizona would have to ratify the compact. Taking this message directly 
  to the people of the state was Governor Sidney Osborn. "With the passage by  
Congress of the Boulder Canyon Project Act in 1928," Osborn declared in
1943,"the   era of theorizing about the Colorado's riches has ended. Whatever
our previous   opinion about the best place and the best plan for utilizing its
water . . .    we now can only recognize that the decisions have been made,
and the dam has   been constructed. "44 . On February 24, 1944, the Arizona
legislature unconditionally   ratified the compact and reversed twenty-two years
of opposition.45 State leaders   then began working closely with the Reclamation
Bureau to devise a major reclamation   project for Arizona. The struggle now
entered a new phase.
    
The   Mexican Water Treaty 
Reinforcing Arizona's decision to 
  ratify the compact was a treaty signed three weeks earlier by the United States
   and Mexico. On February 3, 1944, the two countries had ended nearly a half
century   of controversy by agreeing to divide the waters of the Colorado River.
Some   two thousand square miles of Mexican territory lay within the Colorado
Basin,   a modest amount of land when compared to the US drainage area, but it
included   the Mexicali Valley, one of the richest agricultural regions in
Mexico.

  The Mexicali Valley lies just across the border from
California's Imperial Valley,   and the development of the two areas was closely
intertwined from the outset.   The need to divert water south of the line and to
allow landholders in Mexico   up to half the flow fostered farming in the
Mexicali Valley while also stimulating   demands in the US for the All-American
Canal. Some leaders in both countries   early advocated a treaty dividing the
river's waters, but negotiations seldom   got beyond the preliminary stage.
Complicating the task were attempts to reach   a similar agreement on the lower
Rio Grande, the other major river shared by   the US and Mexico. In 1906, the
two countries had arrived at a settlement on   the waters of the upper Rio
Grande (the area north of Fort Quitman, a demarcation   point just below El Paso
and Juarez), but talks on the lower river stalled and   became increasingly
tangled with those on the Colorado. While virtually all   the waters of the
Colorado originated in the US, the situation was almost the   reverse on the
lower Rio Grande where more than 70 percent of the runoff came   from Mexico.
The situation contained the elements for a horse trade, but neither   country
would compromise enough to reach a settlement. Each nation tended to   approach
the rivers separately and to seek the superior settlement even when   this meant
adopting a legal position on one river at odds with the position   advanced on
the other stream. During extended talks in 1929 and 1930, the US   offered
Mexico 0.75 million acre-feet of Colorado River water, the maximum amount   she
had used in any one year up to that time, but Mexico insisted on more than  
four times as much. When the talks collapsed, Mexico expanded her agriculture  
below the border while Imperial Valley farmers looked forward to the completion 
  of the All-American Canal with which they hoped to force a settlement on
Mexico.   46 
 By the early 1940s both
countries   were anxious for an accord. The completion of the All-American Canal
in 1942   and plans for a project on the lower Rio Grande that would neutralize
Mexico's   superior position there brought Mexican officials to the bargaining
table. The   US sought to put a limit on Mexico's Colorado River uses, which had
doubled   during the previous decade and could be expected to increase further
as a result   of Hoover Dam's regulation of the river. Only when Americans began
using virtually   the entire flow-and that might not be for decades-would the
All-American Canal   become an effective weapon. The US government, enmeshed in
the crisis of World   War II, also believed that a settlement of the water
dispute
  would significantly advance the Good Neighbor Policy of President
Franklin D.   Roosevelt. 
 After months of bargaining  
during which the State Department consulted frequently with leaders in the
Colorado   Basin states, the two nations signed a treaty in February 1944.
Mexico received   1.5 million acre-feet, an amount slightly less than the State
Department believed   that country was then using. 47 
 Californians greeted the
news   with anger. They claimed Mexico deserved only 0.75 million acre-feet, the
maximum   amount that it had used prior to the completion of Hoover Dam in 1935
and the   amount offered in the unsuccessful negotiations of 1929 and 1930.
Behind California's   strong opposition was the belief that Mexico was being
given water that would   mostly come from California. The state had limited
itself to 4.4 million acre-feet   plus half the surplus, and California was
currently using nearly a million acre-feet   of surplus water. California's
calculations indicated there would be little   or no surplus remaining if Mexico
received the amount promised in the treaty.   45

  While Californians
fought vigorously to prevent US Senate approval of the agreement,   the other
basin states advocated ratification. They feared that Mexican uses   would
increase further and perhaps encroach on the basic compact allocations   if a
settlement were not obtained. Even Arizona, which also had designs on surplus  
water, endorsed the treaty. Arizonans, unlike Californians, had not built
expensive   aqueducts with capacities to carry surplus waters to the state.
Moreover, Arizonans,   who had now ratified the compact, shared the upper
states' desire to safeguard   the basic allocations in that agreement. Support
also came from those worried   about the harm that would be done to the Good
Neighbor Policy by a rejection   of the treaty. Repercussions would be more
serious than in earlier years since   Mexicans, not American capitalists, were
now farming the Mexicali Valley. In   1938 the Mexican government had
expropriated most of the land belonging to the   Chandler syndicate and the
remainder had been disposed of a few years later.   Additional advocates of the
treaty were Texans on the lower Rio Grande who were   pleased with the
provisions allocating water on that stream and providing for   orderly
international development.

  The broad support, together with pressure
from the White House, overwhelmed   the California Opposition. On April 18,1945,
the Senate approved the treaty   by a vote of seventy-six to ten. Five months
later, on September27, the Mexican   Senate voted unanimous approval. 49
 
  
Upper
   Basin Compact: Harbinger of Development 
The Mexican treaty, Arizona's
ratification   of the compact, and California's rapidly increasing uses of
Colorado River water   forcefully reminded the upper states of their own
reclamation ambitions. Colorado   had already taken the lead in 1937 by winning
congressional approval of the   Colorado Big Thompson Project, a plan for
transporting water out of the basin   to the cities and farms on the eastern
slope of the Rockies. Other projects   awaited a feasibility study authorized by
the Boulder Canyon Act but delayed   by the onset of World War II. Finally, in
March 1946, the Reclamation Bureau   issued the long-awaited study. The message
proved disconcerting: many possible   projects existed on the headwaters but
there was not enough water for all of   them. Until the upper states determined
their individual rights the Bureau refused   to approve any proj ects.50


  Within four months, the governors of the Upper Basin states had
authorized negotiation   of a compact to apportion their share of the river's
waters. After two years   of gathering data and holding public hearings,
delegates gathered in Vernal,   Utah, in July 1948 to draft an agreement. Three
weeks of negotiations produced   a pact apportioning the Upper Basin water on a
percentage basis: 51.75 percent   to Colorado, 23 percent to Utah, 14 percent to
Wyoming, and 11.25 percent to   New Mexico. The use of percentages reflected
uncertainty over how much water   would remain after the Upper Basin had
fulfilled its obligation to the lower   states and, if the surplus proved
insufficient, to Mexico. Only Arizona, which   had a small section of the state
in the Upper Basin, received a specific volume-fifty   thousand acre-feet.
Unlike the compact of 1922, the Upper Basin agreement provided   for the
creation of an interstate agency, the Upper Colorado River Commission,   charged
with determining the water uses of each state and with reducing diversions   if
that should become necessary to meet the obligations to the Lower Basin.51   
 
The delegates circulated the draft
   agreement among their respective state governments, which gave the go-ahead  
for the formal signing in Santa Fe on October 11,1948. By early 1949, the pact  
had received the approval of all the upper-state legislatures and Congress.   52
Upper Basin leaders now joined with Reclamation Bureau officials to obtain  
major new reclamation projects for their region.

  In early 1952 the
first Colorado River Storage Project Bill reached Congress.   It called for a
billion-dollar dam-building program with major reservoirs at   Echo Park on the
Green River and at Glen Canyon on the main stream near the   Arizona-Utah
border. The bill immediately aroused opposition from southern Californians   who
viewed any significant developments on the upper river as threats to their   own
water uses. More recent measurements of flow had been calling into question  
the rosy forecasts on which the 1922 compact had been based. Major opposition  
also emerged nationwide and focused on the Echo Park reservoir, which would  
flood the unique and beautiful canyons of Dinosaur National Monument. The alarm 
  escalated into the biggest battle over wilderness preservation since John Muir 
  had tried t9 keep a dam out of Hetch Hetchy Valley at the turn of the century. 
  The contest was essentially a civil war in which both sides labeled
themselves"conservationists."   While one side campaigned for conservation for
use through dams and hydroelectric   power, the other argued for conservation
through preservation of unique wilderness   areas. The struggle took on added
intensity when opponents elevated Echo Park   to the status of a test case that
they believed would shape national policy   for decades.53 
 After several years of
struggle,   the bill's advocates finally conceded that Echo Park would have to
go. Opposition   in the House proved unmovable, and preservationists began
threatening to campaign   against other dam sites mentioned in the bill. The
measure that finally cleared   Congress in 1956 eliminated Echo Park and seemed
to reflect an unequivocal preservationist   victory: "It is the intention of
Congress that no dam or reservoir constructed   under the authorization of the
Act shall be within any National Park or Monument."54   Within a short time,
however, it became clear that the victory was far from   complete.
Preservationists viewed their acquiescence to the other major dam   in the bill
at Glen Canyon as a serious mistake that cost the loss of a remarkable  
wilderness area. Their disappointment intensified several years later when they 
  failed to prevent the water rising behind Glen Canyon Dam from flooding Rainbow
   Bridge National Monument in southern Utah.55 The congressional proviso in the 
  1956 measure appeared to be a dead letter. 
 Under the resulting Colorado
   River Storage Project Act of 1956, Glen Canyon became the "cash register"
generating   most of the revenue through the sale of hydroelectric power to
build a dozen   so-called participating projects elsewhere in the Upper Basin.
The largest was   the Central Utah Project outside the basin, which was to
receive water for nearly   144,000 acres of new land and a supplementary supply
for almost 243,000 acres.   By 1963 Glen Canyon Dam had been completed and Lake
Powell had been brought   into existence behind it. The act also authorized dams
for three tributarie~Blue   Mesa on the Gunnison, Flaming Gorge on the Green,
and Navajo on the San Juan.   Additional legislation in 1962 and 1964 further
rounded out Upper Basin desires   by authorizing the San Juan~hama, Navajo,
Fryingpan~ Arkansas, Savery-Pot Hook,   Bostwick Park, and Fruitland Mesa proj
ects.56
    
"Arizona
   V. California: Round Two" 
 The Upper Basin's success  
in obtaining reclamation projects aroused envy and concern in Arizona. That  
state had approved the compact in 1944 and three years later greeted
enthusiastically   the Reclamation Bureau's plan for a massive undertaking, the
Central Arizona   Project (CAP). The plan resurrected and now deemed
economically feasible the   old high-line canal scheme advocated by former
Governor Hunt. The project called   for a 241-mile-long aqueduct to transport
some 1.2 million acre-feet to the   rapidly growing Phoenix and Tucson areas.
When Arizonans introduced a bill in   Congress to authorize the CAP, they
encountered stiff opposition from Californians   who argued that "Arizona was
attempting to use water that did not belong to   the state. This time dissension
centered on conflicting interpretations of the   1922 compact. The differing
claims caused Congress to refuse approval )f the   CAP until the two states had
resolved their differences. Congress did not want   to invest in a project for
which there might be no water,57 
 The news bitterly
disappointed   Arizonans. While the Upper Basin, California, and Mexico were
moving ahead with   their projects, Arizonans had remained stymied. They
believed their only recourse   was to appeal once more to the US Supreme Court.
 
When Arizona filed suit in 1952,  
it asked the Court for a judicial apportionment of the Lower Basin's water.  
When it had made a similar plea in 1935 the Court had refused to act on the  
grounds that no actual harm was being done since the volume of water exceeded  
current uses. Seventeen years later the flow still exceeded uses, but this time 
  Arizona succeeded in persuading the justices that the state would suffer
serious   harm if the dispute with California were not resolved. 
The subsequent trial proved to be 
  among the most complicated and hotly contested in Supreme Court history. It  
lasted eleven years, required the services of a special master, cost nearly  
five million dollars, and resulted in major shifts in position as the two states
   jockeyed for advantage. Some 340 witnesses testified and nearly 50 lawyers
participated   before the opinion was finally announced on June 3, 1963,
followed by the decree   on March 9,1964. 
The decision represented a
tremendous   victory for Arizona, although the nature of the victory took nearly
everyone   by surprise. The Court grounded its opinion not on the compact, but
rather on   the Boulder Canyon Act. In that measure, declared the Court in its
five-to-three   decision, Congress ''intended to and did create its own
comprehensive scheme   for . . . apportionment." According to the justices,
Congress in 1928 had not   merely suggested a Lower Basin compact; it had
actually authorized the Secretary   of the Interior to use his contract power to
implement a Lower Basin agreement-an   agreement "leaving each State its
tributaries" and an agreement in which "Congress   decided that a fair division
of the first 7,500,000 acre-feet of. . . mainstream   waters would give
4,400,000 acre-feet to California, 2,800,000 acre-feet to   Arizona, and 300,000
to Nevada. "58 By awarding Arizona all the water in its   tributaries plus 2.8
million acre-feet, the Court gave the state virtually everything   that it had
unsuccessfully sought during the negotiations for the 1922 compact.    
Californians reacted angrily to  
the decision, accusing the Court of misreading the intent of Congress and
eroding   the rights of the states. They correctly noted that the decision
represented   the first time that the Court had interpreted an act of Congress
as apportioning   rights to interstate streams. Water rights had earlier been
determined only   by interstate compact or by the Supreme Court itself. Now a
third way had won   approval, even though it would have amazed the Congress of
thirty-five years   earlier to know what it was supposed to have done.59 

Another surprise was the Court's  
decision on how future surpluses and shortages would be allocated.
Responsibility   would rest with the Secretary of the Interior, who would not
only apportion   surpluses and shortages among the states but also among the
users within each   state. The latter marked an especially sharp break with
tradition. Since states   had always determined the water laws applicable to
their citizens, they had   naturally also determined the water rights of those
citizens. But now the Court   held that Congress had empowered the Secretary of
the Interior to determine   those rights when water had been secured by contract
from federal reclamation   projects. 
In explaining Congress's authority
   over apportionment, the Court pointed to the navigation clause of the
Constitution,   but it also hinted that Congress could invoke the "general
welfare" clause to   divide the waters of non-navigable as well as navigable
streams.60 The decision   thus increased dramatically Congress's authority over
the nations rivers. More   importantly from the point of view of Arizonans, it
seemed at long last to pave   the way for the Central Arizona Project.
 
  
"Arizona
   V, California" and the American Indian 
The decision in Arizona v.
California   proved almost as much a victory for American Indians as for
Arizona. The Indians   had long been overlooked in Colorado River matters, but
following World War   II they reemerged in the public consciousness as white
Americans grappled uneasily   with the social and economic inequities of the
nation's ethnic minorities. When   Arizona filed suit in 1952, the federal
government intervened to protect its   interests and also to defend the rights
of the Indians living on the twenty-five   reservations in the Lower Basin.
Government lawyers asked for sufficient water   to maintain not only Indian
reservations, but, in addition, the national forests,   parks, recreational
areas; and other governmental holdings. Specifically for   the Indians, the
government demanded enough water to develop all the irrigable   lands on the
reservations. 
The Court upheld the contentions  
of the federal attorneys, al-
  though in doing so it restricted its
decision to the five reservations along   or near the main stream-Chemehuevi,
Cocopah, Yuma, Colorado River, and Fort   Mohave-and left to the future the
ultimate fate of the other reservations. Implicitly,   however the opinion had
far -reaching implications for Indians elsewhere. Invoking   a principle laid
down in the 1908 case of Winters v. United States, the justices   held that the
five lower-river reservations "were not limited to land but included   waters as
well. . . . It is impossible to believe that when Congress created   the great
Colorado River Indian Reservation and when the Executive Department   of this
Nation created the other reservations they were unaware that most of   the lands
were of the desert kind-hot, scorching sands-and that water from the   river
would be essential to the life of the Indian people and to the animals   they
hunted and the crops they raised. " In determining the volume of water   set
aside, the Court adopted the government's position. "How many Indians there  
will be and what their future needs will be can only be guessed. We have
concluded   . . . that the only feasible and fair way by which reserved water
for the reservations   can be measured is irrigable acreage. "61 Although the
measurement of the right   was irrigable acreage, the Court held in a later
supplemental decree that the   Indians were not restricted in the uses to which
they could put their water.62   Reason, rather than agriculture, seemed to
emerge as the ultimate test. 
The 1963 decision also stipulated 
  that Indian uses were to be charged against the state in which a reservation  
was located. This especially disturbed Arizona where most of the Indian land  
was located, but it pleased none of the basin states. In addition, the Court  
held that the Indian rights dated from the establishment of a reservation and  
was superior to later non-Indian rights, including those rights based on uses  
initiated before the Indians had begun diverting water. Thus the Court held  
(and in so doing reaffirmed the earlier Winters decision) that the Indian rights
   existed whether or not the Indians were actually using water and continued
unimpaired   even if the Indians should cease their uses. Since some of the
Indian lands   along the lower river had been Set aside as early as 1865 and
none later than   1917, the decision left the Indians in an almost impregnable
legal position.    
But the Indians soon learned that 
  a legal right did not guarantee them water. A decade after the decision, the  
Indians were farming
  only about half their irrigable acreage. By the later
1970s the amount was closer   to 60 percent, but the Indians themselves had
developed less than 8 percent.   The remainder was in the hands of non-Indian
leaseholders. The major reasons   for this situation were Indian poverty and
non-Indian pressure on the federal   government. The Indians were unable to
finance expensive irrigation projects   themselves, and Congress was reluctant
to help because of pressure from non-Indians   op posed to Indian projects that
would divert water from their cities and farms.   The Colorado River Indian
Irrigation Project, for example, was initiated in   1865 but remains uncompleted
primarily because of lack of funds. Not surprisingly,   when Indian lands on the
lower river have been developed, it has usually been   because tribes have
entered into long-term leasing arrangements with non-Indians.   63 
Another disappointment to Indians 
  on the lower Colorado was the 1983 Supreme Court decision on the extent of the 
  irrigable acreage on the reservations. For two decades Indians and non-Indians 
  debated sharply, with the Indians offering one set of figures and the
non-Indians   insisting on another and lower set. In 1979 the Supreme Court
turned the dispute   over to a special master who three years later recommended
that the Court uphold   Indian claims that would permit them to receive some 1.2
million acre-feet or   about a third more water than had been awarded nearly
twenty years earlier in   Arizona v. California. In a five-to-three decision,
the Court in 1983 rejected   the recommendation, explaining that it violated the
spirit of res judicata:   "Recalculating the amount of practicably irrigable
acreage runs directly counter   to the strong interest in finality in this
case." Besides, the Court observed,   more water for the Indians "cannot help
but exacerbate potential water shortage   problems" for non-Indians. 64 
Elsewhere in the Colorado River  
Basin, Indians have sometimes bargained away potential rights in order to obtain
   congressional support for projects. The Navajos, the nation's largest tribe,  
did so in 1957 when the tribal council, in exchange for congressional approval  
of the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project, agreed to waive its priority on the  
San Juan River 'and to share water shortages proportionately with non-Indians.  
A decade later the Navajos entered into still another agreement which
compromised   their claims and became the subject of sharp controversy. In
exchange for the   construction of a power plant on the reservation and the jobs
and revenue it   would provide, the Navajos agreed to limit their demands to the
water of the   upper Colorado to fifty thousand acre-feet. The limitation was
for the life   of the power plant (now in operation) or for fifty years,
whichever ended first.   Many Navajos subsequently attacked the agreement,
claiming that the federal   government failed to fully inform the tribal council
about valuable potential   rights that it was surrendering.65 In recent years,
the Navajos have employed   engineers and attorneys to prepare a water rights
case against the basin states   and the federal government, Some observers
believe that the suit, if filed,   will be for at least five million acre-feet.
66 The outcome of such litigation,   as well as of suits now being contemplated
by other tribes, is impossible to   determine. What is clear is that Indians can
no longer be ignored in future   planning for the Colorado River.
   
 
The
   CAP: Catalyst for Basinwide Development 
Arizona v. California proved a
boon-at   least legally-for Indians, but Arizonans were the major beneficiaries.
As victors   in their decade-old struggle with California, they optimistically
returned to   Congress for authorization of the Central Arizona Project.
Approval did not   come easily, however. Californians had lost the Supreme Court
battle in 1963,.   but their large delegation in the House of Representatives
doggedly held up   the Arizona project for five years. Behind the California
resistance was the   conviction of state leaders that earlier estimates of
stream flow had been grossly   overestimated. Instead of 16.4 million acre-feet
at Lee's Ferry, the runoff,   according to more recent estimates, was closer to
fourteen million acre-feet.   This meant that under conditions of full
development, the Lower Basin would   receive at Lee's Ferry only the
seventy-five million acre-feet over a ten-year   period as guaranteed in the
1922 compact. Adjustments for evaporation losses,   Indian claims, and the
Mexican treaty obligation could be expected to reduce   the available supply
even further.67 
But Californians were willing to  
bargain. As the price for dropping their opposition to CAP, they demanded a  
first priority for California's apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet. In
effect,   Arizonans would have to promise to regulate CAP diversions so that
Californians   never received less than that amount. No one missed the point:
California boldly   sought to regain some of the ground lost in the 1963 Court
decision. 
Arizonans reluctantly acquiesced. 
  Like Californians, they were uneasy about the adequacy of the water supply,  
but their desire for the CAP outweighed their uneasiness. The water diverted  
to the CAP, they promised Californians in a provision added to the bill, "shall 
  be so limited as to assure the availability" of the 4.4 million acre-feet
allocated   to California. 
Arizona had to mollify more than  
California. The concern about the water supply had spread to the Upper Basin.  
If the river flow at Lee's Ferry was only about fourteen million acre-feet,   as
many now suspected, then the upper states, after fulfilling their obligation  
to the Lower Basin, would receive 6.5 million acre-feet, a million acre-feet  
less than anticipated in the 1922 compact. Their share could drop even further  
after allowing for evaporation losses, the Mexican treaty, and Indian claims.  
Worried that such water-supply estimates might later prevent them from obtaining
   projects on their own, they tied their fortunes to the Arizona bill. They
agreed   to support it but only in exchange for a provision authorizing five
projects   for the Upper Basin-Animas-LaPlata, Dolores, Dallas, West Divide, and
San Miguel.   This would bring to twenty-one the number of "participating
projects" authorized   by Congress for the Upper Basin since l956.~ 
The maneuvering for concessions  
produced a bill authorizing projects for which the water supply was likely to  
be inadequate. This possibility prompted the basin states to close ranks behind 
  another provision directing the Bureau of Reclamation to study ways of bringing
   water into the Colorado River Basin from other river systems. Strong
opposition   came from environmentalists and especially from leaders in the
Pacific Northwest   who knew that Bureau officials viewed the Columbia River as
the probable source   of a supplementary supply. Although the opponents failed
to delete the provision,   they succeeded in obtaining a ten-year ban on
interbasin studies. 
Satisfying the various water
interests   in the basin proved to be only one of the obstacles facing the CAP
advocates.   In the public's mind, the most controversial aspect of the
legislation involved   two proposed dams, one at Marble Canyon just east of the
main gorge of the Grand   Canyon, and the other at Bridge Canyon, a short
distance west of Grand Canyon.   The principal purpose of the dams would be

  to generate hydroelectricity to provide revenue for building the CAP and power 
  to pump the water into Central Arizona. Both dams would flood scenic areas,  
and the reservoir behind Bridge Canyon would inundate portions of Grand Canyon  
National Park and Grand Canyon National Monument. Environmentalists waged a  
vigorous, national campaign against the dams that was reminiscent of the
struggle   over Echo Park. The furor finally forced the deletion of the dams. In
their   place was substituted a coal-fired power plant to be built at Page in
northern   Arizona. 69 
As finally amended, the CAP
legislation   emerged as the Colorado River Basin Project Bill. In September
1968, the billion-dollar-plus   package of compromises received congressional
approval. 70 
Uncertainty over the adequacy of  
the water supply for the CAP as well as concern about the project's impact on  
the environment resulted in only small annual appropriations for actual
construction.   By the early 1 980s the slowdown in the nation's economy had
added to the delay,   but by then the coal-fired plant had been built (emitting
air pollutants over   Grand Canyon, Zion, Cedar Breaks, and Bryce that caused
environmentalists to   regret having given their earlier approval) and
completion of the CAP to the   Phoenix area was scheduled for late 1985 and to
the Tucson area for the early   l990s. In the Upper Basin, nine of the
twenty-one participating projects had   been completed by 1971 and work was
continuing on most of the others in the   early l980s. Construction crews on the
ambitious Central Utah Project had by   early 1985 finished a tunnel through the
Continental Divide and were under contract   to complete the final segments of
the 37-mile-long Strawberry Aqueduct.71
    
Salinity
   Controversy with Mexico 
Even before construction had begun
   on the CAP or on most Upper Basin projects, the United States had become
embroiled   once more in a controversy with Mexico, this time over the quality
of the runoff   reaching that country. The 1944 treaty had guaranteed Mexico 1.5
million acre-feet,   but the agreement said nothing specific about water
quality. The seriousness   of the omission had become apparent even before
ratification and while hearings   were being held on the treaty in the US and
Mexico. American negotiators claimed   that the Mexican obligation could be met
with water of any quality, while Mexico's   diplomats told their senators that
the treaty guaranteed water of "good quality."   The issue had arisen because
studies indicated that water reaching Mexico during   certain future periods
would consist almost entirely of heavily saline drainage   from irrigated fields
in the US Such concern failed to dampen the enthusiasm   of treaty advocates who
feared that attempts to clarify the agreement through   reservations or
renegotiation would result in no treaty at all. 72 Sixteen years   later water
quality emerged as a bitter issue between Mexico and the US 
In 1961 the Wellton-Mohawk
Irrigation   District, located along the lower Gila River in Arizona, completed
a channel   discharging drainage water into the Colorado just above Mexico's
diversion canal.   This water was exceptionally heavy in salt content since its
source was an underground   basin possessing no outlet and containing water that
had been used and reused   over the years until it had declined sharply in
quality. The introduction into   the Wellton-Mohawk Valley of a new supply from
the Colorado River in the 1950s   had raised the water table and damaged fields,
causing farmers to take the Reclamation   Bureau's advice and install wells to
pump the polluted groundwater to the surface   and channel it into the main
stream. When this drainage water reached the Colorado   in February 1961 it
caused the average annual salinity of the flow crossing   the border to nearly
double. Resulting crop losses in Mexico produced a loud   outcry. Mexican
officials accused the US of violating the 1944 treaty, demanded   compensation
for damages, insisted on water as good as that going to the Imperial   Valley,
and threatened to take the issue to the International Court of Justice   if the
protests went unheeded. The US denied that the treaty imposed any obligation  
"with respect to the quality of the water," but nonetheless took steps to
alleviate   the problem. Fresher water was released from American dams and a
channel was   constructed in 1965 to divert the Wellton-Mohawk drainage around
the Mexican   intake. 73 
The situation improved, but both  
countries recognized the improvement as temporary. It would be only a matter  
of time before evaporation from American reservoirs and completion of projects  
already authorized would seriously impair the quality of water crossing the  
border. The two nations sought a negotiated settlement, and on August 30, 1973, 
  they signed an agreement known as Minute 242 of the International Boundary and 
  Water Commission. 74 
Both governments hailed the
agreement   as "the permanent and definitive solution of the salinity problem, "
an expression   mote of hope than ~f reality. Minute 242 promised Mexico that
most of its water   (1.36 million acre-feet) would have an average annual
salinity of no more than   115 parts per million (plus or minus 33 ppm) over the
salinity of the water   going to the Imperial Valley. The balance of Mexico's
water (0.14 million acre-feet),   which had traditionally been delivered at San
Luis on the Arizona-Sonora land   boundary, would continue "with a salinity
substantially the same as that of   the waters customarily delivered there." The
agreement obligated the US to assume   all the costs necessary to maintain the
agreed-upon salinity levels. In addition,   the US pledged to finance the
installation of tile drains in the Mexicali Valley   and to fund any other
"rehabilitation" measures necessary to eliminate the "salinity   problem" there.
 
As far as Mexico was concerned,  
Minute 242 would represent a permanent and definitive solution" only so long  
as water quality remained substantially as it was at that time (approximately  
1,000 ppm). The American negotiator of the agreement candidly acknowledged that 
  unless the US immediately took steps to control salinity within its borders  
another dispute with Mexico was inevitable. 75 
Congress took the hint. In June  
1974 the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act received the overwhelming  
approval of both House and Senate. The measure authorized upstream salt-control 
  projects in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, as well as one of the world's largest  
desalination plants near Yuma. The plant is now under construction and scheduled
   for completion in 1989 or 1990. Only time will reveal the success or failure  
of the efforts. 76
    
Retrospect   
"A river no more is one current  
assessment of the Colorado. 77 It is difficult to argue with such an
observation.   The dams and aqueducts already in place have permanently altered
the river's   appearance and, for more than two decades, have prevented
virtually any water   from flowing to the Gulf of California. 78 Completion of
projects already authorized   can only further control a river that long ago
ceased to be
  wild. The wonder is that the Colorado has been so transformed
in light of the   monumental battles over its waters during the last
three-quarters of a century.   But those controversies reflect not only the
preciousness of water in an arid   land, but more importantly, the almost
frenzied determination of the combatants   to use water as quickly as possible
and thereby strengthen their claim to it.    
The determination to use rivers  
has shaped the major western institutions dealing with water in general and  
the Colorado in particular. The law of prior appropriation is an obvious
reverberation,   but so too are the Colorado River Compact, the Boulder Canyon
Act, the Mexican   treaty, the Upper Basin compact, the 1963 Arizona v.
California decision, and   the other actions, which, taken together, have made
the Colorado what it is   today. Each represents for its time what was perceived
by its advocates as the   best way of dealing with the river. The best way, of
course, did not always   mean the most efficient, the most environmentally
sound, or the fairest way   to proceed. 
Some would now like to undo past  
decisions or at least to chart a future less constrained by those actions. In  
the Upper Basin are those who advocate rewriting the 1922 compact so as to
reflect   more recent estimates of stream flow and to assure themselves enough
water to   develop their oil-shale and other mineral reserves. Indians want a
larger share   of the river. Environmentalists wish to prevent additional
development and to   sidetrack some authorized but uncompleted projects. More
significantly, they   would like to change popular attitudes which view every
drop of water reaching   the ocean as a drop wasted and which tend to overlook
aesthetic and recreational   values associated with uncontrolled streams.
 
There are, in addition, those
convinced   that the only way to proceed is to augment the Colorado River with
water from   elsewhere. In 1978 the ten-year moratorium on studies to bring in
water from   other basins was renewed for another ten years. When it was first
imposed, most   eyes were on the Columbia River, but the emergence of the
environmental movement   and the costly pumping requirements projected in
studies of the Columbia have   dampened enthusiasm for such a transfer-at least
for the time being. 
Ten years ago many experts
predicted   that desalination of ocean water would become a major source for
meeting municipal   and industrial needs. Since then, declining public support
for nuclear plants   and skyrocketing costs of oil for conventional facilities
have seriously undermined   this possibility for the foreseeable future. The
energy cost in oil for desalting   an acre-foot of ocean water in southern
California is more than six times that   for an equivalent volume of Colorado
River water brought in by aqueduct. 79    
A byproduct of the soaring cost  
of energy has been intensified competition for the relatively cheap power
produced   at Hoover Dam. The original power contracts were scheduled to come up
for renewal   in 1987. California by the mid-1980s was receiving nearly 65
percent of the   electricity, while Arizona and Nevada were getting 17.6 percent
apiece. At first,   California insisted that the new contracts reaffirm the old
arrangement, but   Arizona and Nevada demanded an equal allocation among the
three states, arguing   that they needed the additional electricity, that the
Boulder Canyon Act entitled   them to it, and that the dam's location in the two
states warranted a larger   share. Californians disagreed, contending that their
decision to take the power   provided the revenue to build the dam and that
"it's not right that Nevada and   Arizona can come back 50 years later wanting
to take two thirds of the power.   "80 Others, especially in the East, objected
to maintaining the current rate   structure, arguing that the cost of Hoover
electricity was significantly below   that of power elsewhere in the nation and
hence represented an unwarranted governmental   subsidy. Anxious to forestall
the growing demands for a rate increase and to   avoid a protracted court battle
among themselves, the three lower states in   1984 hammered out a compromise
based upon increasing the capacity of Hoover   Dam's generators, the
surrendering by California of a small amount of energy,   the obtaining of
additional power from other sources, and the retention of the   current basis
for computing the cost of power. (Despite agreement on the last   point, the
actual cost of power to the public could be expected to rise significantly   as
a result of the changes to Hoover's generators and the obtaining of the
additional   power from elsewhere.) With the western states voting almost as a
block, Congress   approved the agreement and in late summer the President signed
into law the   Hoover Power Plant Act under which the new contracts would not
again come up   for renewal until the year 2017.81 
Although the dispute over power  
has captured recent headlines, concern over the water supply remains a
fundamental   issues. Representatives of basin states with incomplete water
projects become   nervous during public discussions about possible water
shortages. Receiving   much attention is weather modification through
cloud-seeding as a way to augment   river supplies. The results of the Bureau of
Reclamation's pilot program in   the San Juan mountains of Colorado suggest that
cloud-seeding throughout the   Upper Basin mountains would increase runoff by
1.3 million acre-feet a year.   Although some find these claims encouraging, the
overall feasibility of weather   modification as a significant source of water
must await the completion of current   studies.82 Also receiving emphasis are
programs to control more effectively   weeds along water courses and to
encourage more widespread use of laser land-leveling   technology, drip
irrigation, and sprinkling rather than flooding. 
Behind the scramble for water in  
years past was not only its obvious necessity for survival in a water-shy
country   but also an obsession with growth-an obsession that equated progress
with obtaining   enough water to develop the biggest farms and cities and
industries. Many now   question that fascination with growth, but even they tend
to forget that water   is a finite commodity. Ten years or a hundred years or a
hundred thousand years   from now, the world's supply will remain the same. Such
an assertion cannot   be made about the world's population or about mankind's
capacity for devising   technologies to use-and abuse-the limited water supply.
Put another way, the   fate of all natural bodies of water is inseparably tied
to human values about   the quality of life and the number of people any part of
the world can properly   support. Seen from this perspective, the Colorado River
is a microcosm of the   world's water supply. Lessons learned from its past and
policies adopted for   its future are of fundamental importance not only for
those dependent on the   river, but also for peoples everywhere. 
Notes  

1. Arthur Powell Davis to J. B. Lippincort, 10 October 1902,
Colorado   River Project, 1902-1919, Bureau of Reclamation Papers, Record Group
115, File   187, National Archives.
2. Arthur Powell Davis, 
  The Single Tax from the Farmer's Standpoint (Minneapolis, 1897); Davis to
Gifford   Pinchot, 14 May 1~2, Arthur Powell Davis Papers, Western History
Research Center,   University of Wyoming, Laramie; Gene Gressley, "Arthur Powell
Davis, Reclamation,   and the West," ~Agricultural History 42 (1968),
pp.241-S7.
3. League of the
Southwest,   "Minutes" (Denver, 25-27 August 1920), p.34, copy in Box 477,
Imperial Irrigation   District Papers, Imperial, Calif.
4. This agreement was  
reached in 1904, three years after water was brought through Mexico to the
Imperial   Valley. For the complex developments leading to it, see Norris
Hundley, jr.,   "The Politics of Reclamation: California, the Federal
Government, and the Origins   of the Boulder Canyon Act-A Second Look,"
California Historical Quarterly 52   (1973), pp.300-
304.
5. "Report of the
American   Section of the International Water Commission, United States and
Mexico," H.   Doc. 359, 71st Cong., Zd sess. (1930), p. 103; Otis Tout, The
First Thirty Years,   1901-1931 (San Diego, 1931), passim; House Committee on
Irrigation of Arid Lands,   Hearings on All-American Canal in lmperiai County,
Calif., H. H. 6044, 66th   Cong.,1st sess. (1919), pp. 121,139,143,
passim.
6. House Committee on  
Irrigation of Arid Lands, Hearings on All-American Canal in Imperial County,  
Calif, H. R. 6044, p.116.
7. Imperial Irrigation  
District Board of Directors, "Minutes"(13 November 1917), vol.3, p.92; Fl Centro
   Progress, 11 November 1917; US Department of the Interior, Seventeenth Annual 
  Report of the Reclamation Service, 1917-1918 (Washington, D.C., 1918), p.382;  
Cong. Rec., 66thCong., 1st sess. (1919), p. 1258.
8. "Report on H.R. 6044 
  for Relief of Imperial Valley, California," 21 August 1919, p. 13, File
711.1216M/494,   Records of the Department of State, National Archives; House
Committee on Irrigation   of Arid Lands, Hearings on All-American Canal in
Imperial and Coachella Valleys,   Calif, H. R. 6044 and H.R. 11553, 66th Cong.
(1920), pp.94,142, 261, 290, passim.
9. Cong. Rec., 66th
Cong.,   2d sess. (1920), p.7360.
10. William L. Kahrl,  
Water and Power: The Conflict over Los Angeles' Water Supply in the Owens Valley
   (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982); Abraham Hoffman, Vision or Villainy: Origins
   of the Owens Valley~Los Angeles Water Controversy (College Station, Tex.,
1981).
11. "Problems of
Imperial   Valley and Vicinity," S. Doc. 142, 67th Cong., 2d sess. (1922),
pp.282-83.
12. Metropolitan Water  
District of Southern California, Metropolitan Water District Act (Los Angeles,  
1947).
13. Colorado River
Commission,   "Hearings" (Denver, 31 March 1922), p.70, copy in Colorado River
Project, Bureau   of Reclamation Papers, Record Group 115, File 032, National
Archives.
14. "Problems of
Imperial   Valley and Vicinity, " S. Doc. 142, 67th Cong., 2d sess. (1922), p.
21.
15. Cong. Rec., 67th
Cong.,   2d sess. (1922), pp. 5929, 5985.
16. Wyoming v. Colorado,
   259 US 419 (1922).
17. Delph Carpenter,
"The   Colorado River Compact," p.21, file 1-MI 366, Herbert Hoover Papers,
Hoover   Presidential Library, West Branch, Iowa; "Proceedings of the League of
the Southwest,   Denver, Colorado, August 25, 26, 27,1920" (typescript 11920]),
pp.287-90, copy   in Papers of the Utah State Engineer, Utah State Archives, Sak
Lake City.
18. US Statutes at Large
   42 (1921), p.171.
19. See Colorado River  
Commission, "Minutes," in Colorado River Project, Bureau of Reclamation Papers, 
  Record Group 115; file 032, National Archives.
20. Delph Carpenter to  
Frank C. Emerson, 7 September 1922, Papers of the Wyoming State Engineer,
Wyoming   State Archives, Cheyenne.
21. See, especially,
Colorado   River Commission, "Minutes of the Seventeenth Meeting" (15 November
1922), pp.8-12;   "Minutes of the Nineteenth Meeting" (19 November 1922), pt. 1,
pp.4, 8; W. S.   Norviel, "Report of W. S. Norviel, Colorado River Commissioner,
State of Arizona"   11923], p. 6, file 1-M13 15, Hoover Papers; Richard B.
Sloan, "Pact Criticism   Is Largely on What It Does Not Say," Arizona Mining
Journal 6 (15 January 1923),   p. 58. For a detailed discussion of the
negotiations, see Norris Hundley, jr.,   Water and the West: The Colorado River
Compact and the Politics of Water in   the American Way (Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1975), pp.187-214.
22. Colorado River
Commission,   "Minutes of the Twenty-first Meeting" (20 November 1922); "Minutes
of the Twenty-second   Meeting" (22 November 1922).
23. See, especially, the
   minutes of the Colorado River Commission for the eleventh through the
twenty-second   meetings; Delph Carpenter to Frank C. Emerson, 19 August 1922,
Papers of the   Wyoming State Engineer; "Problems of the Imperial Valley and
Vicinity," S. Doc.   142, pp.2, 5; "Report of the Colorado River Board on the
Boulder Dam Project,"   H. Doc. 446, 70th Cong., 2d sess. (1928), pp.9,
12.
24. "Colorado River
Compact,"   H. Doc. 605, 67th Cong., 4th sess. (1923), Article IV For a later
legal analysis   of the compact and much more, see Charles J. Meyers, "The
Colorado River," Stanford   Law Review 19 (196~ 67), pp.l-75.
25. Colorado River
Commission,   "Minutes of the Nineteenth Meeting" (19 November 1922), pt. 2,
p.2; "Minutes   of the Twentieth Meeting" (19 November 1922), p.2.
26. Colorado River
Commission,   "Minutes of the Twentieth Meeting" (19 November 1922), pp.39-40;
Deiph Carpenter,   Report. . . in re Colorado River Compact (n.p. [15 December
1922]), p.7, copy   in file 032, Colorado
River Compact, Bureau of Reclamation Papers; "Colorado River Compact,"
   Article VII.
27. Colorado River
Commission,   "Minutes of the Twenty-seventh Meeting" (24 November 1922), p. 8;
Santa Fe New   Mexican, 25 and 28 November 1922.
28. Journal of the
Arizona   Senate: Sixth Legislature, 1923, p.22.
29. George W. P. Hunt,  
Arizona's Viewpoint on the Colorado River (Phoenix, 17 August 1925), p.1.

30. Hundley, Water and  
the West, chap. 8.
31. Delph Carpenter to  
R. T. McKisick, 23 December 1924, A. T. Hannett Papers, New Mexico State
Archives,   Santa Fe.
32. Journal of the
California   Assembly, 1925, p.1031; Journal of the California Senate, 1925,
pp.1135-36.
33. House Committee on  
Irrigation and Reclamation, Hearings on Colorado River Basin, H.R. 6251 and  
H.R. 9826, 69th Cong., 1st sess. (1926); Senate Committee on Irrigation and  
Reclamation, Hearings on Colorado River Basin, S. 728 and S. 1274, 70th Cong.,  
1st sess. (1928); Hiram Johnson to C. K. McClatchy, 17 March 1928, Hiram Johnson
   Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
34. Cong. Rec., 70th
Cong.,   2d sess. (1928), pp.382, 389.
35. Ibid., pp.470, 471. 
  For a close analysis of the congressional discussion of this suggested
agreement,   see Norris Hundley, jr., "CIo NQdS: Arizona v. California and the
Boulder Canyon   Act: A Reassessment," Western Historical Quarterly 3 (1972),
pp. 17-51.
36. US Statutes at Large
   45 (1928), pp.1057-66; 46 (1929), p.3000; Calif Stats. (4 March 1929), chaps. 
  15-16, pp.37-39.
37. "Hoover Dam
Documents,"   H. D~c. 717, 80th Cong., 2d sess. (1948), pp.65-69.
38. William L. Kahrl,  
ed., The California Water Atlas (Sacramento, 1979), pp.41-42.
39. Arizona v.
California,   283 US 423 (1931).
40. Arizona v.
California,   292 US 341(1934).
41. Arizona v.
California,   298 US 558 (1936).
42. Hundley, Water and  
the West, pp.294-95, passim.
43. Ibid., pp.297-98.  
For a perceptive analysis of Arizona water politics into the early 1960s, see  
Dean B. Mann, The Politics of Water in Arizona (Tucson, 1963).
44. Journal of the
Arizona   Senate, 1943, pp.89-90.
45. Journal of the
Arizona   Senate, 1944, pp. 3~-39; Journal of the Arizona House, 1944,
p.60.
46. Norris Hundley, jr.,
   Dividing the Waters: A Century of Controversy Between the United States and  
Mexico (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), chaps.2-4.
47. Ibid., p.147.

48. For a detailed
account   of the debate over the treaty in the United States and Mexico, see
ibid., chap.   6. A careful legal analysis of the treaty may be found in Charles
J. Meyers   and Richard L. Nob~, "The Colorado
River: The Treaty with Mexico," Stanford Law Review 19 (196~67),  
pp.367-419.
49. Cong. Rec., 79th
Cong.,   1st sess. (1945), pp. 3491-92; Excelsior (M~xico, D.E), 28 September
1945.
50. US Bureau of
Reclamation,   The Colorado River: A Comprehensive Departmental Report on the
Development of   the Water Resources of the Colorado River Basin for Review
Prior to Submission   ro the Congress (Washington, D.C., 1946), p.21. For
discussion of the Colorado--Big   Thompson Project, see Donald B. Cole,
"Transmountain Water Diversion in Colorado,"   Colorado Magazine 25 (1948), pp.
49-65, 118-33; William Kelly, "Colorado-Big   Thompson Initiation, 1933-1938,"
ibid., 34 (1957), pp. 6~74; and Oliver Knight,   "Correcting Nature's Error: The
Colorado~}~Big Thompson Project," Agricultural   History 30 (1956), pp.
157-69.
51. Jean S.
Breitenstein,   "The Upper Colorado River Basin Compact," State Government 22
(1949), pp. 21~16,   225.
52. US Statutes at Large
   63 (1949), p.31.
53. Senate Committee on 
  Interior and Insular Affairs, Hearings on Colorado River Storage Project, 5.  
1555, 83d Cong., 2d sess. (1954); Roderick Nash, Wilderness an:l the American  
Mind, 3d ed. (New Haven, 1982), pp. 209-19; Dean Mann, Gary D. Weathefford,  
and Phillip Nichols, "Legal Political History of Water Resource Development   in
the Upper Colorado River Basin," Lake Powell Research Project Bulletin No.4  
(Los Angeles, September 1974).
54. For discussion of  
the controversy, see the items cited in the preceding note as well as "Echo  
Park Controversy Resolved," Living Wilderness 20 (1955-56), pp.23-43; David  
Perlman, "Our Winning Fight for Dinosaur," Sie~a Ch£b Bulletin 41(1956),  
pp.5-8; Owen Stratton and Phillip Sirotkin, "The Echo Park Controversy, "
Inter-University   Case Program No.46 (University, Ala., 1959); Richard B.
Baird, "The Politics   of Echo Park and Other Development Projects in the Upper
Colorado River Basin"   (Ph. D. diss., University of Illinois, 1960); Elmo
Richardson, Dams, Parks and   Politics (Lexington, Ky., 1973).
55. Eliot Porter, The  
Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado (San Francisco, 1963); Francois  
Leydet, Time and River Flowing: Grand Canyon (San Francisco, 1964); Nash,
Wilderness   and the American Mind, p.229; Dean B. Mann, "Conflict and
Coalition: Political   Variables Underlying Water Resource Development in the
Upper Colorado River   Basin, "Natural Resources Journal 15 (1975), pp.
16~67.
56. US Statutes at Large
   76 (1962), p. 96; 78 (1964), p.852.
57. House Committee on  
Interior and Insular Affairs, Hearings on the Central Arizona Project, H.R.  
1500 and H.R. 1501, 82d Cong., 1st sess. (1951), pp.739-56, passim.
58. Arizona v.
California   et al, 373 US 564, 565(1963).
59. See Hundley, "CIo  
Nods: Arizona v. California and the Boulder Canyon Act," pp.17-51.
60. Arizona v.
California   et al, 373 US 587(1963).
61. Ibid., 373 US 596,  
598-601(1963). See also Winters v. United States, 207 US 564(1908); and Norris  
Hundley, jr., "The 'Winters' De~ision and Indian Water Rights: A Mystery
Reexamined,"   Western Historical Quarterly 13 (1982), PP. 17-42.
62. Arizona v.
California   et al., 439 US 422 (1979).
63. Norris Hundley, jr.,
   "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Indian Water Rights: Confusion Elevated to
Principle,"   Western Historical Quarterly 9 (1978), pp.478-79; Acting Assistant
Director,   Phoenix Area Office, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, to author, 18
January 1983.
64. Arizona v.
California,   51 LW 4329 (1983); Los Angeles Times, 19 March 1982 and 31 March
1983; Acting   Assistant Director, Phoenix Area Office, US Bureau of Indian
Affairs, to author,   18 January 1983.
65. Monroe B. Price and 
  Gary D. Weatherford, "Indian Water Rights in Theory and Practice: Navajo
Experience   in the Colorado River Basin," Law and Contemporary Problems 40
(1976), pp.108-31;   James P. Merchant and David M. Domhusch, The Importance of
Water Supply to Indian   Economic Development (prepared for the Office of Water
Research and Technology,   US Dept. of the Interior, 1977), pp.64-65; interviews
with members of the Navajo   Tribal Council, 2 May 1977
66. Metropolitan Water  
District of Southern California, INFO (Los Angeles, October 1977),p. 27.
67. House Committee on  
Interior and Insular Affairs, Hearings on Lower Colorado River Basin Project,  
H. H. 4671 and Similar Bills, 89thCong. (1965-1966); Hearings on Colorado River 
  Basin Project, 90th Cong., 1st sess. (1967);
Hearings on Colorado River Basin Project, Part II, 90th Cong.,   2d
sess. (1968). For an advocate's inside view of the struggle for the CAP,   see
Rich Johnson, The Central Arizona Project, 1918-1968 (Tucson,
1977).
68. Ibid. For a
perceptive   analysis of the bargaining for projects, see Helen M. Ingrain,
Patterns of Politics   in Water Resource Development: A Case Study of New
Mexico's Role in the Colorado   River Basin Bill (Albuquerque, 1969).
69. Nash, Wilderness and
   the American Mind, pp.227-35; Congressional Quarterly Fact Sheet (1 November  
1969), pp.3019-31.
70. US Statutes at Large
   82 (1968), p.885.
71. Upper Colorado River
   Commission, Thirty-second Annual Report (Salt Lake City, 30 September 1980),  
pp.47-56; Central Utah Water Conservancy District, Annual Report, 1981 (Salt  
Lake City, 1982); interview with Vernon Valantine of the Colorado River Board  
of California, 15 May 1984, and 21 February 1983; Los Angeles Times, 19 February
   1985. For concern about the air pollution caused by the coal-fired plant, see 
  Los Angeles Times, 9 February 1975; Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American 
  Experience (Lincoln, 1979), p.185.
72. Senate Committee on 
  Foreign Relations, Hearings on Water Treaty with Mexico, 79th Cong., 1st sess. 
  (1945), pp.323-38,1109, 1704, passim; Hundley, Dividing the Waters, pp.153-59, 
  passim; Hundley, 'The Colorado Waters Dispute," Foreign Affairs 42 (1963-64),  
pp.495-500. For a Mexican perspective that, although polemical in outlook,
reproduces   many Mexican documents, see Ernesto Enriquez Coyro, El Tratado
entre Mexico   y los Estados Unidos de Ame~ca sol're Rtos internationales: Una
Lucha Nacion   a 1 de Noventa An~os, 2 vols. (Mexico, D.F., 1975).
73. Joseph E Friedkin,  
Commissioner of the US Section, International Boundary and Water Commission,  
to the author, 6 June 1983; Hundley, Dividing the Waters, pp.172-80.
74. For a copy of the  
English and Spanish versions of Minute 242, see the January 1975 issue of
National   Resources Journal, pp.2-9. This issue also contains a valuable
collection of   articles which analyze the salinity problem and Minute
242.
75. El Urnversal
(Mexico,   D.F.), 30 August 1973; House Committee on Interior and Insular
Affairs, Hearings   on Colorado River Basin Salinity Control, H.R. 12165, 93d
Cong., 2d sess. (1974),   p.107; Myron Holburt, "International Problems of the
Colorado River," Natural   Resources Journal iS (1975), pp.21-22.
76. US Statutes at Large
   88(1974), p.266; US Section, International Boundary and Water Commission,
Joint   Projects of the United States and Mexico
through the International Boundary and Water Commission, 1983   (n.
p., [1982]), p. 30; Hundley, Water and the West, pp. 3 1&~1 7; interview  
with Vernon Valantine of the Colorado River Board of California, 15 May 1984.  
See, also, "Symposium on Anticipating Transboundary Resource Needs and   
issues in the U. S.-Mexico Border Region to the Year 2000," Natural Resources  
Journal 22 (October 1982), passim.
77. Philip L. Fradkin,  
A River No More: The Colorado River and the West (New York, 1981),
78. Metropolitan Water  
District, INFO, p.30.
79. Ibid., p.21.
80. Los Angeles Times,  
9 November 1982.
81. Federal Register,  
9 May 1983, pp. 20872~89; memo from MWD Director of Contracts Administration  
to Assistant General Manager David N. Kennedy, 19 May 1983, copy in possession  
of author; interview with Vernon Valantine of the Colorado River Board of
California,   1 July 1983, iS May 1984, and 21 February 1985; Colorado River
Association,   CRA Newsletter, 19, no.3 (1984), p.3; Los Angeles Times, 9 August
1984.
82. Colorado River Board
   of California, Annual Report, 1979 (Los Angeles, 1980), p. 12; Metropolitan  
Water District, INFO, pp.23-24.