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Show 152 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Central Arizona Project, and in this plot, Arizona had the full support of the Reclamation Bureau. The Bureau, and its parent, the Interior Department, refused to open the mesas, which were mostly public domain, for settlement and development. The chief motive of the Bureau was clear: the All American Canal was built, and to stay alive the Bureau had to have new projects, and the Central Arizona Project was the largest ever proposed. On March 28, 1949, Interior Secretary Krug gave to the press a release containing a letter he had written to Evan T. Hewes, president of the Imperial Irrigation District. It said: 186 Secretary of the Interior J. A. Krug has dispatched a letter informing the Imperial Irrigation District, El Centro, Calif., that in view of land classification and repayment feasibility reports, irrigation of public lands on the east mesa by either the government or the district "would be inimical to public interest." What Krug did not tell the press was that reports that the mesas were unsuitable to irrigation had been refuted and disproved by the Imperial Irrigation District. With its own money the district had created an experi- mental farm on the East Mesa and had demonstrated that crops would grow well, and that the land was fully suitable for settlement and development. Hewes im- mediately issued a press statement setting forth these facts, and the matter was discussed by Michael J. Dowd, chief engineer of the Imperial Irrigation District, at a later meeting of the Senate committee. Senator Malone, an engineer, told the committee: 187 "I simply do not believe that the Congress will be a party to appropriating taxpayers' money for the purpose |