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Show 6 BOULDER CANYON PROJECT the waters have cut, leaving towering perpendicular walls between which dams may be constructed at a minimum of effort and expense. Immense basins have been carved out where its waters can easily be stored. It has distributed the material carried down by its floods over the low-lying lands in the valleys below, converting the otherwise barren and worthless desert into highly productive and fertile soil. A menacing and destructive agency in its natural State, the Colorado River but awaits development and control, to be one of the great contributing factors to the wealth of the Nation and the happiness of the people of all of the territory of the Southwest. Successive administrations have recognized not only the possibilities of regulation and control of the ColoradtrRiver but the necessity for that regulation and control. From the time of President Roosevelt to that of President Coolidge, the Federal Government has recognized the problems of the Colorado River and thes"' lands dependent upon it, and that these problems because of their country wide and international aspects were national in character and a matter of national concern. The present bill embodies the conceded solution of years of painstaking care and thorough study and investigation b}7 the ablest engineers of our country. It seeks not only the control of one of the Nation's great rivers, but endeavors to remove the danger and the menace which, like a pall, has rested upon tens of thousands of American citizens, utilizes what is now waste water for reclamation, irrigation, and domestic use, and ends the intolerable conditions now surrounding the Imperial Valley in its water supply. The citizens in the Imperial Valley and the territory contiguous thereto have long been praying the Congress for relief from the perilous position in which the Colorado River in its erratic moods has placed them. Imperial County is the southeasterly county of the State of California. It borders upon Mexico. In its conformation physically it is different from any other part of our country and possibly different from any part of any other country in the world. The fertile valley which takes its name from that of the county is in shape like a saucer. Along the rim of a part of this saucer-shaped land flows the turbulent Colorado River. Beneath is the valley, 250 feet below the level of the sea. The rainfall is negligible. It is a natural desert composed of silt from the river that flows above it and which, during the ages, has reclaimed the sea, for the Imperial Valley at one time undoubtedly was a part of the Gulf of California, which gradually has been filled by this silt deposit of the Colorado River. One thing, and one thing alone, makes the Imperial Valley possible for productivity and habitation. One thing transforms a hideous desert into a modern paradise, and that one thing is water. From one place, and one place alone, can water be obtained, and that place is the Colorado River. The Colorado is an American stream. It has its source in the United States, as had been related. It is true that it meanders through Mexico and finally finds its outlet in the Gulf of California. But it is an American river, and it is an American river to which Americans in America are entitled first. Each season, because of the silt it carries, its bed rises higher. It is restrained and controlled by dykes and levees. The height of these levees has been constantly increased until to-day they are built to the danger point and can* not be built higher. |
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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] : California exhibits. |