OCR Text |
Show 306 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER ARIZONA COMPACT CLAIMS QUESTIONED 5. Finally, how can Arizona claim rights under the Cali- fornia Limitation Act - which was enacted as a condition to a six-state Colorado River Compact, to take effect only if Ari- zona failed to ratify before June 25, 1929 - and in the same breath claim rights as a party to a seven-state compact? If she had ratified in time, before June 25, 1929, the Limitation Act, by its terms, would never have taken effect. Can she get a better position by ratifying fifteen years after the President proclaimed the time closed? We would like to find out. The Immediate Future These pressures on California's water supply, from the Upper Basin and from Arizona, would not exist if the standards of project feasibility which Congress applied in determining California's share of the Colorado River were applied to the rest of the basin. We were obliged by the Boulder Canyon Project Act to promise, in advance of any appropriation, to repay every cent of the federal investment, and there are no write-offs, even for flood control. These pressures would not exist if Congress limited the subsidy to the Upper Basin irri- gation project and the Central Arizona Project to 50 per cent, or even 75 per cent, of the investment. The subsidy required by the proposed irrigation projects in the Upper Basin is over 85 per cent. As to the Central Arizona Project, the amount the farmers can pay barely equals operation and maintenance, plus about three cents per acre per year to apply on an irri- gation investment by the federal taxpayer of over $300,000,000. The gross, repeat gross, annual power and water revenues of the Central Arizona Project are less than simple interest on the total power and irrigation investment. Apportionment Not Treasury Lien We say that the Colorado River Compact's apportionment to the Upper Basin of 7,500,000 acre-feet per annum was not a lien on the Federal Treasury for subsidies needed for infeas- ible projects costing over $1,000 per acre, and the same is true with respect to Arizona's share of the Lower Basin's water. |