AZ vs. CA:24 California Exhibits, Vol. XXIV; Miscellaneous

page A37

COMPACT-ANALYSIS BY HERBERT HOOVER A37 Members of the Senate, by which any treaty proposed must be ratified. Question 12. Is it true, as has been asserted, that, if the Colorado River compact be approved, the water which should reclaim 2,500,000 acres of land in Arizona will go to Mexico and there irrigate a vast area owned by American speculators who will cultivate the same with Asiatic coolie labor and raise cheap crops in competition with Arizona and California farmers ? If such assertions have been made, there is absolutely nothing in the compact upon which they can be based. They are the result solely of unrestrained and unfounded imagination. As already stated, there is no reference in the compact to any rights of any persons in Mexico; none are created and none are recognized. That entire question, if it ever arises, must be dealt with by the Federal Government in the exercise of its treaty-making power. Such a subject was beyond the purview of the acts creating the commission, and it was intentionally omitted from the compact. Question 13. Objection has been made to paragraph (d) of Article III in that it authorizes the withholding of an indefinite amount of water by the States of the upper division during a drought which might extend over two or three years. If the drought should be broken by heavy rains the ensuing floods would provide the total of 75,000,000 acre-feet within the 10 years, but water would be denied to the lower basin when worst needed and oversupplied when not needed. In your opinion, does this provision of the compact seriously menace the proper and maximum development of irrigation projects in the lower basin? In my opinion, the provision about which you ask does not menace the proper and maximum development of irrigation projects in the lower basin. The future development of the Colorado River Basin is dependent wholly upon the creation of storage. The lower States have certainly reached the limit of development by the direct diversion of the flow of the river. Reservoirs are imperative. They must be of sufficient size not merely to equalize the annual flow, but to impound the excessive floods of one year to supply a deficiency resulting from a following lean year. Such construction will obviate, to a great extent, the likelihood of the situation you suggest. Furthermore, there cannot be a drought or lack of water in the lower States without a similar condition in the upper. A shortage of water below can only be caused by lack of rainfall above. It is inconceivable that any upper State would attempt to store and withhold water it did not need. Such action would not be permitted under the ordinary rules of law and is prohibited by the compact itself. If the water is used in the