WSP08754 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

t~ " . , i I , I , I 2020 VISION ON THE COLORADO By COLONEL NORMAN E. PEHR~ONI OJ.strict Engineer U,S. Army Engineer District, Los Angeles It is a distinct privilege to be the lead-off speak~r on the occasion of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Colorado River Water Users Associatiorl, an organization which has truly been a leader in "water statesmanship". OVer this past quarter of a gentury the annual meetings of the AssochttlO.U have provided an effective forum for its members to lair mutual water problems, the discussions of which has led to better understanding and to mote djfinitive courses of action concerning common usage of the vast Colorado River System. , i ';,; In view of my position on the agenda, my rem'arks will be in the nature of a keynote speech intended to set the stage for the distinguished and expert speakers who will follow, and to give direc- tion and purpose to our thinking today and over the coining year until the next annual meeting. il Perhaps you are curious about the title of my' talk -- 2020 Vision on the Colorado River. It was chosen deliberately to enable me to speculate oJ the future out to the year 2020. Also, if we twist the term "20/20" around and apply it as the stanlctard for good vision, we can analyze and evalu- ate against this yardstick our past, present and future planning on the Colorado. I scarcely need emphasize to those of you assejnbled here today how extremely important the proper management of Colorado River water is to the welfare and development of the Southwest. Together with its tributaries, the Colorado cuts across the very heart of the most arid region of the country. To the stranger, the area at first glance hold& little or no promise of development, but those of us who have labored to reclaim and develop this seering wasteland know its tremendous potential- provided critically needed water is applied at the right fime and place. It would be well to ask ourselves how we hav~ done so far in managing the sometimes inade- quate and othertimes too abundant water budget of the Colorado River System. Have the plans and efforts of the past put us on the right road to best, utilization of available water and related land resources? Let's take a look. The first real step towards achieving successful control over use of the river water came about with the negotiation of the Colorado River Compact of 1922 for apportioning water among those states drained by the system. This compact was deficient in that it merely divided water between the Upper and Lower Basins, but the action did serve to overcome some of the jealous notions about pro- prietary rights which were brewing at the time. It brqught the affected states together in at least an initial agreement and thus brought on the next stage,' the Boulder Canyon Project Actof 1928. Under this act Congress authorized construction of Hoover Dam with its huge power plant and its tremendous reservoir capacity dedicated not only to power production, water conservation, irri- gation, municipal and industrial use and recreation, but in a very large measure to silt control and flood control, as well. Hoover Dam was followed in subsequent years by many other dams and reser- voirs adding to the availability of waters impounded for specified usage. As evidence that past planning was neither perfect nor complete, additional compacts and de- cisions had to be reached to satisfy the needs of water users. In 1945 the Mexican Water Treaty was signed guaranteeing that country 1.5 million acre-feet annually to meet its irrigation:needs; the appor- tionment of water in the Upper Basin was refined in 1948 by the Upper Colorado River Basm compact, which divides that water among the five states lYing wholly or in part in the basin; and the most far- reaching decision, perhaps, was the 1964 Supreme Court decree dividing the Lower Basin water into the now renowned three-way split of 4.4 million acre-feet annually to California, 2.8 million to Arizona and 300,000 to Nevada, with appropriate provision for distributing any quantity available in excess of 7.5 million acre-feet per year. The most recent adjustment in e.arlier planning, of course, is the author- ization of the Central Arizona Project which, when elfecuted will facilitate Arizona's utilization of her compact apportionment by putting Colorado River water where she needs it most. It is not my intention to argue the merits of,these various acts and agreements, but merely to -7-