|
<br />A. B. WEST
<br />
<br />I
<br />~
<br />l
<br />
<br />from Lake Mead, is perhaps the most planned and calculated streamflow in the Nation. It ebbs and
<br />flows in conformance with a programed effort to maximize power generation revenue at Glen Canyon
<br />Dam, within a predetermined annual total release. The river's flow can be manipulated in the same
<br />fashion as the garden hose on the tap outside your house, and is.
<br />
<br />Below Hoover Dam the control of releases is equally sensitive, except that here the controlling
<br />factor is not power, but the daily order or demand for irrigation and municipal water. These daily ord-
<br />ers are based upon contracts between the users and the United States. These releases also include what
<br />might be called "the seepage and the swipage:' The latter loss has to be calculated as best we can, as
<br />there are no orders placed and no measurement of water taken by trespassers or permittees. We use
<br />our own observations, supplemented by some observations of the U.S,G.S., which give us only an ap-
<br />proximation of daily or weekly needs. On an annual basis we calculate that 120,000 acre-feet are taken
<br />by unauthorized users.
<br />
<br />With the facts thus established, the problem becomes one of how the available water is to be
<br />best conveyed from Davis Dam to the Mexican border. All shades, gradations and degrees of savings
<br />and salvage are possible. Reclamation's effort has been to achieve a balanced program that allows all
<br />uses to live with each other. The flow of the Colorado River is recognized nationally as being less than
<br />optimum for the constructed and newly authorized projects.
<br />
<br />The Central Arizona Project depends in years of minimum flow solely upon the water that is L
<br />salvaged from the river below Davis Dam. All of you who worked on the Colorado River Basin Project
<br />bill, signed into law last September 30, know this. Everyone not familiar with the testimony on S.
<br />1004 and H.R. 3300 should read it. Federal witnesses made clear that when upper basin uses approach
<br />the upper basin entitlement a total of only 380,000 acre-feet annually will be available for diversion to
<br />the Central Arizona Project in years of low riverflow. This amount of 380,000 acre-feet, we testified,
<br />is dependent upon an annual salvage of 680,000 acre-feet. This total includes 220,000 acre-feet of
<br />groundwater to be recovered in the Yuma Valley and adjacent areas and used to fulfill a part of the
<br />1.5 million acre-foot annual delivery to Mexico. Then, the Senator Wash facilities annually save
<br />170,000 acre-feet, 190,000 acre-feet are to come from river salvage, and 100,000 acre-feet from phrea-
<br />tophyte clearing adjacent to the river. To the extent that 680,000 acre-feet are not salvaged each year,
<br />the water supply for the Central Arizona Project will be diminished proportionately,
<br />
<br />I was pleased to receive, within the past few weeks, a resolution from the Arizona Interstate
<br />Stream Commission endorsing Reclamation's river management program, including the Topock Gorge
<br />work. This, together with the solid support received from a score or more of responsible water enti-
<br />ties in southern California, demonstrates that the States are working together in implementing the
<br />Colorado River Basin Act, just as they did in obtaining its enactment,
<br />
<br />On state and national levels, various groups are expressing strong opposition to any clearing of
<br />phreatophytes, and, apparently, to any salvage of water on the lower river. We have participated in
<br />many "show me" trips down the river wit'l these people, by boat and helicopter, trying to explain the
<br />responsibilities imposed on us by the Congress to manage the river. We have explained that, of the
<br />total amount presently budgeted for river management work, one-fourth is for fish, wildlife, and
<br />recreational purposes. These expenditures for fish and wildlife are justified to the committees of the
<br />Congress by Reclamation. The planned work is the result of virtually innumerable meetings with Fed-
<br />eral and State wildlife and conservation groups.
<br />
<br />We have no alternative but to assure that the United States can deliver to contract users the
<br />amounts of water that contracts between those users and the United States call for. This is a Federal
<br />obligation, At the same time, we have no intention of abandoning our obligation to fish, wildlife, and
<br />recreation beneficiaries.
<br />
<br />But these two goals must somehow be kept in balance. Water means different things to differ-
<br />ent people. To some of those who have contracts with the United States for delivery of agricultural
<br />and municipal water, the salvage aspect of our river management program in times of short supply
<br />means the difference between having or not having the water that their operations require.
<br />
<br />-27-
<br />
<br />
|