AZ vs. CA:25 California Exhibits, Vol. XXV; Nos. 7501-7859

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1937 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE 4531 Protest of the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming Against the Gila Valley Irrigation Project in Arizona introduction The representatives of the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming in conference assembled at Denver to consider various problems connected with their interests in the waters of the Colorado River system Join in protest against: I. Federal aid for the Gila Valley irrigation project in Arizona unless so conditioned as to protect the protesting States. THE GILA VALLEY IRRIGATION PROJECT IN ARIZONA The representatives of the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming join in protest against the granting of any Federal aid to the Gila Valley project, except upon the condition that the State of Arizona adhere to the Colorado River compact prior to the availability of any such aid. They base their protest upon the following grounds: 1. Arizona should be granted no Federal aid until she subjects all of her water priorities, no matter where located or with whatever project connected, to the Colorado River compact. The Gila River project contemplates, when carried out in its various proposed units, the irrigation of approximately 585,000 acres of land at a cost of approximately $80,000,000 and with a draft on the Colorado River and from the Boulder Canyon Reservoir situated therein of approximately 2,000,000 acre-feet per annum. Construction has been commenced but is still in its infancy. Each State upon an interstate stream is entitled to an equitable apportionment of the waters of that stream. The Colorado River compact, purporting to award 8,500,000 acre-feet a year to the lower basin, composed mainly of the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada, and 7,500,000 acre-feet a year to the upper basin, composed mainly of the States of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, is based upon this theory of an equitable apportionment. The allocations of water thus made, and the compact making them, received the approval and consent of the Congress of the United States through the passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act, notwithstanding the fact that Arizona, unlike the other six States, failed to ratify the compact by act of her legislature. The protesting States can conceive of no reason for Arizona's failure, unless it be that she is unwilling to abide by the compact-division of the waters of the river system which all the other States and the Congress of the United States believe to be just-and that she intends to attempt to assert water priorities against the other States contrary to the terms of said compact and contrary to interstate justice.