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Show THE WESTERN WEB 95 mation, in a preliminary report on the Central Arizona Project, had stated: "Assurance of a water supply is an extremely important element of the plan yet to be re- solved. . . If the contentions of California are cor- rect, there will be no dependable water supply avail- able. . ." "The question before the committee," Ely told Milli- kin, "is not whether California or Arizona is right, but whether their differences should be submitted to the Supreme Court." He reminded the committee that in the early days of the controversy Arizona had gone to the Supreme Court three times, and "there was no doubt in her counsel's mind of the existence of a controversy at that time." One by one, Ely went through the historical docu- ments which comprised the law of the river, and then he discussed the cases involving the river which had gone to the Supreme Court.77 In 1931, Arizona had sought to enjoin the construction of Hoover Dam, and to have the Boulder Canyon Pro- ject Act and the Colorado River Compact declared in- valid. The Arizona brief had been prepared by eminent counsel, Dean Acheson, later Secretary of State, and Clifton Mathews, who became a judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. They, declared Ely, told the court that Paragraph b of the Compact did not ap- portion water in perpetuity, as did Paragraph a, and they said the Compact had been "very careful not to do this." Thus, Ely showed that the position of Arizona at the time was almost identical with the present position of California. "There was a conflict over water then," he said, "but not over the meaning of the basic documents." |
