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I HISTORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER WATER USER'S ASSOCIATION By HUGH A. SHAI\IIBERGER Fifth President of thi~ Association :; " I I appreciate the opportunity to appear here t~day and tell you something about the history of this Association and the events that lead to its creal\.on. In working up this brief statement it gave me the opportunity to review the proceedings of the previous twenty-four meetings and in doing so it made me more appreciative of the many accomplishjnents of this Association, but I was saddened as I read the names of so many of our old members w\1o have passed on. Men - water users, attorneys, engineers and businessmen who had individually ma~e the welfare of the Colorado River Basin their life's work and whose contributions to this Basin will never fully be evaluated. I am thankful, as I know you are, that I had the privilege of knowing, t\lem. A little over two months ago Alfred Merritt Smith, the Association's first president, passed away at the age of 92. Last July the Colorado River Commission of Nevada most appropriately named t~e Water Treatment facility to be constructed by the Colorado River Commission as an integral part <if the Southern Nevada Water Project, the Alfred Merritt Smith Water Treatment Facility, I The history of this Association has been revie:wed at two previous annual meetings and appears in the proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference in 1950 and the Fourteenth Annual Conference in 1957, and was presented by Alfred Merritt Smith, As related by Mr. Smith in 1944, all the actual water users on the Colorado River system were becoming alarmed over the provisions of a pending treaty between the United States and Mexico. One item of the proposal was the annual allocation ,of approximately 1,700,000 acre feet of water to Mexico from the Colorado River, Urgent messages I from various irrigation organizations, protesting such an excessive allocation, led Governor Carville of Nevada to request all concerned water users. to convene in Las Vegas in order to properly formulate a combined protest to the Department of State. This meeting was held on January 12 and 13, 1945 here in Las Vegas in the old Last Frontier Hotel. Fifty-six representatives were in attendance from six of the Colorado River Basin states, estim- ated to represent 77% of the total water users on the Colorado River system. The proposed Mexican Treaty was unanimously denounced as a flagrant violation of this country's right to prior usage of the water. The delegates decided to combine in this strong Association to defeat it, and immediate steps were taken to formally organize the body. There appeared to be little question in the Association's record that the treaty was a trade or deal between the Mexicans on one hand, and powerful interests in Texas. The Texans wanted water from the Rio Grande and had no compunction in selling our water "down the river". During that period Senator Tom Connelly of Texas was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and he was very active in promoting the passage of the Treaty. President Roosevelt supported the Treaty as a foreign policy measure necessary, in his opinion, to secure the good will and support of Mexico in time of war. Again as stated by Mr. Smith, another factor, and a distressing one, was the political exped- iency that influenced the thinking of the adminis~rations of Arizona and the Upper Basin states at that time. Their belief, in short, was that the government would not authorize or support any reclam- ation projects on the Colorado River until some form of treaty with Mexico had been ratified. Also there was considerable belief by these interests that there was enough Colorado River water to meet all demands, including the Mexican burden, At this initial meeting in 1945 Alan Bible, then the Attorney General of Nevada, and now tile senior Senator, acted as the temporary President. Other temporary offices were Perry W. JenkinS of Wyoming as Secretary and A. J, Shaver of Nevada as Treasurer. The Conference appointed a working committee to prepare a constitution. The Constituti9n was prepared and approved, with newer amend- ments, at the Second Annual Conference held in Salt Lake City, February 1946. The Constitution set forth the objectives of the Association, the main objective being to protect and safeguard the interests. .. . -5-