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Show 70 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER morning of Saturday, June 28, 1947, before the Millikin Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation.40 Howard at once attacked the Reclamation Bureau's preliminary report on the Central Arizona Project, as it had been presented by Larson. It was, he declared, based entirely on Arizona's interpretation of the laws and compacts dealing with the Colorado River. California's interpretations had been ignored. The Bureau had arbitrarily accepted Arizona's claim that enough water was available for the project. "The Congress," said Howard, "is now being urged to authorize a project, the cost of which will run into hundreds of millions, while the availability of water for the project depends on documents admittedly subject to conflicting interpretations." The controversy, declared Howard, was more properly a matter for judicial, rather than legislative, interpre- tation. Through more than a quarter century all at- tempts to negotiate or arbitrate had failed. Obviously, before the project was approved by Congress and the enormous investment made, the controversy should be resolved in a manner binding on the parties. He felt that it was up to Arizona to sustain her claims in court. In this way California officially disclosed its conviction that the only remaining hope of resolving the contro- versy was in the Supreme Court of the United States. Delving into the history of the Colorado River Com- pact, Howard quoted a statement by Delph E. Car- penter, who represented the state of Colorado in the Compact negotiations and who was credited with being the father of the Compact idea. Carpenter, said * The 1950 population of areas served by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was 3,352,074; assessed valuation was $4,281,519,725. |