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Show THE THREE-RING CIRCUS 175 were well established and had long been recognized by Congress and the Bureau of Reclamation. Nor would they admit that the valley's future was secure by virtue of its contracts for water with the Federal Government, and that these contracts also obligated the farmers of the Imperial Valley to repay the costs of the great All American Canal project, which they were doing on schedule. The Phoenix area and the Imperial Valley produced the same agricultural products, and it soon became obvious that professonal jealousy was motivating the Arizona witnesses in their attack on the competitor across the Colorado River. Bimson accused the Imperial Valley of wasting a million acre-feet of water annually by dumping it into the Salton Sea, and stated that another ten million acre- feet wasted each year into the Gulf of California. This, he declared, "passeth all understanding." The understanding was quickly supplied by Engle, who explained that most of the water flowing into the Gulf was not waste water but belonged to Upper Basin states which had not yet made use of their shares of the river. This water could never be used by either California, Arizona or Nevada if it wasted until eternity. Another large part of the flow into the Gulf was water assigned to Mexico by international treaty, and it could never be used by any state. The flowage into the Salton Sea would be thoroughly explained by engineers, who would show that it was not waste water but legitimate drainage. Bimson declined to discuss the matter further on the ground that he was neither a lawyer nor an engineer.234 "It strikes me as extremely short-sighted on the part of |
