OCR Text |
Show APPENDIX J 297 the Rio Grande. This quantity was about twice the amount that Mexico had been able to use before Hoover Dam was built to control and salvage the flood waters under a statute which declared that such waters should be used exclusively within the United States. The Senate ratified the treaty with eleven reservations. The Upper Basin support of the treaty was based on the assumption that its burden would fall primarily on the Lower Basin, be- cause the "surplus," which is the first victim of Mexico under Article m (c) of the Compact, had already been appropriated in the Lower Basin and was lost to the Upper Basin anyhow. Arizona's support was secured, we assume, perhaps unjustly, on the Upper Basin's promise to support the Central Arizona Project. Nevada, in the meantime, in 1942 and 1944, secured contracts with the Secretary for 300,000 acre-feet. The Central Arizona Project The Central Arizona Project was actively before Congress from 1946 to 1952. This scheme is predicated on interpre- tations of the Compact which we are now contesting in the Supreme Court. The Secretary of the Interior reported that the ultimate increase in the national debt occasioned by this project would exceed two billion dollars. Nevertheless, bills to authorize it twice passed the Senate, with the assistance of the Upper Basin states. During this period California countered with Congressional resolutions authorizing suit in the Supreme Court. The United States had been ruled to be a necessary party in the 1936 de- cision, and the consent of Congress is necessary to an action joining the United States as a party - unless it voluntarily intervenes. These resolutions were opposed by Arizona and the Upper Basin states, and were not enacted. In 1952 Arizona, temporarily putting the Central Arizona Project on the shelf, brought the present suit in the Supreme Court. The Present Suit In this action, which named as defendants the state of California and seven public agencies of this state which hold water storage and delivery contracts with the United States, |