| OCR Text |
Show litigation pending or concluded* or negotiations for* or compacts which have been concluded between States, covering the use of the waters of interstate streams. The Committee acknowledges the sources of much of the material used herein and desires to express its thanks and appreciation for such use, and for the Valuable assistance rendered by these various agencies. The Chairman also desires especially to thank J# B« McCormick, Dean of the Law School, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; William Ro Kelly, Attorney at Lawp Greeley, Colorado; and Wells Hutchins* Irrigation Economist, Bureau of Agricultural Engineering, Berkeley, California, for reviewing the report of the Committee, and the Honorable Ralph L, Carr, who prepared that part of the report covering the litigation over the La Plata River Interstate Com- pact. The Committee does not conceive it to be.its function to express any particular view, or to draw conclusions with respect to any of the matters discussed herein* with which various individuals may disagree. It has at- tempted to limit its report to a compilation of the history of interstate litigation and compacts covering the important subject of interstate waters, together with a brief digest thereof, and the views of various commentators thereon. Problems Related to Interstate Waters. - Interstate water problems exist on almost every interstate stream of the nation, or are potential sources of interstate controversies» They are becoming more complicated and more diffi- cult to solve as the need and demand for water increases. In recent years, public attention has been directed as never before toward the water problems of the nation. Withering droughts and devastating dust storms in the arid regions of the West* wide-spread soil erosion, record-breaking floods, and receding water-tablos - with increasing needs for ample and stabilized waiter supplies for great centers of population and industrial areas, and the need for mitigating the dire effects of stream pollution *• have caused grave alarm throughout the nation. No doubt, these conditions arose because there has been a protracted cycle of deficient precipitation that culminated, gen- erally throughout the West, in the extreme low of 193^« The gradual increase in population and expansion of irrigated areas in the arid West have likewise made heavy and increasing demands upon the limited water supplies available to those areas, the future development of which must of necessity be res- tricted to the ultimate consumptive uses of such supplies. In a humid region, except for comparatively limited demands for domestic, industrial, and sanitary uses5 waters are more often an agent of destruction than a blessing, and place a heavy financial drain upon the resources of com- munities. States, and the nation5 for their regulation and disposal. Sucti demands* howeverr have not raised problems of an interstate nature* as have the more vital needs for domestic and sanitary purposes* and for the produc- tion of food supplies in the arid West. These latter problems may be con- sidered, in general, to be of more local than national concern. They have forced communities, centers of population, and even States* to search be- yond their confines for water supplies to meet their growing necessities. As a result* the people dependent upon the waters of a stream view with das- trust any attempts to divert a portion of its waters to another water-shed or basin, and a State is even more jealous of the water supplies that -79- |
