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Show COMPACT----REPORT BY McCLURE-CALIFORNIA A75 of the Colorado River System may be established. The function of the Compact is not to provide for the construction of any particular project or projects. Its main purpose is to afford the means of clearing the way for any development that may be undertaken in any section of the Colorado River Basin, by removing cause for artificial restriction or interference from other sections of the river basin. This Treaty plan presents itself as the most satisfactory method of solving the Colorado River problem. No other stream in the arid West affects so many states as does the Colorado River. In its lower reaches the Colorado River flows southerly along the entire eastern boundary of Imperial County, California. During the past twenty years a very prosperous community has been developed in the Imperial Valley, Imperial County, under the authorization of our irrigation district laws. The irrigation district contains something over 500,000 acres of very fertile land, and secures its entire water supply from the Colorado River. During the low-water flow of the river of three seasons within the past eighteen years, there has been a shortage of water for irrigation. A larger area of land is now being irrigated and a larger amount of water is needed, hence a much more serious condition is anticipated in the future because of the sure occurrence of other seasons of scant supply. The other extreme as to the amount of water flowing down the Colorado River, namely, that of floods, creates a very serious condition also. The Imperial Valley Irrigation District has been compelled during a number of years past to spend large amounts of money in constructing and maintaining levees with which to form barriers against the entry of the river into the valley and into the Salton Sea. In order that protection may be provided for flood damage, and that additional water may be conserved for low-flow seasons, and in order to serve for the extension of the irrigable area, it is neecessary that impounding works be constructed at some point on the river. This irrigation district has been cooperating with the U. S. Reclamation Service for some years in investigating the best site for such impounding works. The proposal on the part of the State of California to so plan and protect the interests of Imperial County is of interest to the other states lying within the basin of the Colorado River drainage area and, in order that there may be general community interest and a general working plan adopted by all such states, certain legislation was proposed and passed by all of them during the year 1921. California's Act is expressed in the language of Chapter 88, Statutes of 1921, and is as follows: (The text of California Statutes, 1921, chapter 88, appears at this point in Mr. McClure's report, but is omitted here.) |
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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] : |