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Show CENTRAL ARIZONA PROJECT 9 LETTER OF COMMENT FROM THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA Executive Office, State House, Phoenix, Ariz., April 24, 1948. Hon. Michael W. Straus, Commissioner, Bureau oj Reclamation, Department of the Interior, Washington, D. C. My Dear Commissioner: We in Arizona have reviewed the report on the central Arizona project, Project Planning Report No. 3-8b-4-2, together with your letter of January 26, 1948, addressed to the Secretary of the Interior. We believe the central Arizona project is engineeringly sound and financially feasible, and that the people of central Arizona, utilizing the main stream water to be delivered to that area'through the proposed works with the aid of revenue from the hydroelectric energy that will be generated at Bridge Canyon Dam, will be able to repay the costs properly chargeable to irrigation and power within a reasonable time to the Treasury of the United States. We further believe that it essential that the project be authorized and constructed as soon as possible. We in Arizona plan to use the water to be diverted from the main stream of the Colorado River through the proposed works to furnish a supplemental water supply to lands now irrigated, but inadequately irrigated, in order to preserve the civilization now existing in the State of Arizona and to prevent possible economic chaos. The irrigation of lands in central Arizona has been expanded beyond the water supply of central Arizona both by diversion from surface streams and by pumping from underground. We are now pumping from underground in central Arizona approximately 1,000,000 acre-feet of water per year more than comes into the area underground. We are. therefore, rapidly exhausting ground water, and the surface streams in the area are insufficient to maintain in production the lands now irrigated. |
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Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : |