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Show 2. The Compact at once became the subject of an intensely interested public discussion. Meetings were called at the instance of the State's Chief Executive; organizations of private citizens were effected; investigations, both official and private, of Arizona's irrigational possibilities, and of the resources of the Colorado within Arizona, were entered upon. 3. The Arizona Engineering Commission, composed of a representative of the United States Reclamation Service, a representative of the United States Geological Survey, and a representative of the State of Arizona, completed its labors, which had been authorized by Act of the Arizona Legislature, of ascertaining the Arizona area irrigable from the Colorado River, and reported to the Governor in July, 1923. This report indicated the probability of the feasible reclamation from the Colorado River, including the lands already irrigated, of approximately one million acres. Preliminary investigations and surveys by engineers representing the Arizona High-line Canal Association, aided to some extent by funds supplied by the State, were made the basis of claims that three million or more acres of Arizona's lands could be watered from the Colorado. Thus the question of Arizona's water requirements became a moot and much disputed issue. 4. The possibility, if not the likelihood, that the combined requirements of California and Arizona might exceed the supply of Colorado River water available to the States of the Lowe Basin, and the fear that California, with her superior financial resources and political power, might deplete that supply to the injury of Arizona, formed the basis of a strong demand that as a condition precedent to ratification of the Colorado River Compact, a treaty should be effected between the Lower Basin States of California, Nevada and Arizona. At the request of private citizens, the Governor of Arizona, on two occasions, sug- |
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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. |