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Show 268 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER the junking of some already constructed, the building of numerous new ones, and giving the Bureau absolute and permanent control of water and power projects. California would have been the state most grievously injured by the scheme, and, indeed, one of its major goals was to achieve that result. California was one of the most formidable enemies Straus and his planners were obliged to face. It had led the successful fight against the Arizona project through three Congresses, and Straus wanted revenge. As the Colorado River Association of California pointed out to the newspapers, the so-called United Western Report "would affect virtually every stream in the great Columbia River system, take Oregon and Washington water southward hundreds of miles, where it is neither wanted nor needed, and would scrap im- mense projects already operating in Southern California, and for which California taxpayers had agreed to pay, and are paying, more than half a billion dollars. "The plan would toss on the junk heap the Colorado River Aqueduct which supplies water to more than forty cities and areas in Southern California, junk the All American Canal, and take away California's share of the Colorado River." 388 Straus had long hoped to get California into a fight with Oregon and Washington, but this hope was not to be fulfilled. Those two states were well aware that California had no designs on their water, and their officials saw through the Straus scheme and publicly condemned it. Nevertheless, Senator Nixon felt called upon to tell the press that "the facts as to California's water supply would defeat automatically any scheme to divert water |
