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Show HI HO, AQUALANTES 187 But the happy members of the National Reclamation Association were no sooner home from their rose festival in Portland than they were made to look like pikers. A Denver quilt-maker named Chester L. Thomas came up with a dream of a water supply project that put the wildest reclamation schemes in the shade. A little background is necessary before Thomas' vision can be explained. For some time, the Recla- mation Bureau had given thought to bringing water into California from the Columbia River. This would allow California to give up its Colorado River water to Arizona. California did not take to the scheme, and the Columbia Basin states were downright opposed to it. Long before, California had issued an official statement saying it had no designs on Columbia River water and had no thought of giving up its Colorado River water. The chief objection of the Northwest to the plan was, quite correctly, the fact that Columbia River water rights were established and the water was needed for present and future projects. The Northwest planned to grow, and it did not propose to surrender any of its rights or any of its water to California or any other state beyond the basin. The Columbia scheme had lain dor- mant for some time when Denver's Thomas had his brainstorm. For some unexplained reason, the Denver Post thought well enough of Thomas' plan to print a long story about it. How the Post felt about it a little later was not disclosed. This was the Thomas plan, as reported by the Post: 214 He would build a plastic tube and run it under the ocean from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Los |