WSP09503

• File Number: 8278.400
• Description: Title I - Mexican Treaty
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 5/10/1962
• Author: CWCB - D. Hamburg
• Title: Mexican Water Treaty Negotiations Pertaining to the Colorado River
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

"

purpose of showing that even proponents of this treaty
are not in full accord as to what it means. If that
is the fact, then is there any reason in the world
that you can see why the Senate of the United states
would not be justified in putting in three words which,
in my opinion, would clarify it, and those words are
"regardless of quality"?

MR. ACHESON. I have answered that.

THE CHAIRMAN. Of course, Mr. Wallace is not a
lawyer. He just testified here as one familiar with
this problem, and he is entitled to his opinion. But
we are dealing now not with what Mr. Wallace individually
thinks, but with what is in the treaty.

MR. ACHESON. Yes, sir.

THE CHAIRMAN. To put in that sort of language, to
insert the words "regardless of quality", would amount
to an offensive attitude toward Mexico. In other words,
we would be saying, "We are going to give you a million
and a half acre-feet of water, but we want to tell you
right now that we are going to put a lot of slop and salt
in it and make it impossible for you to get any kind of
good water" . To carry out Senator Downey's proposal, we
would be choking them off absolutely in the growing period,
and then dumping water on them in periods when there is no
growth.

MR. ACHESON. I agree with you."

QUOTATIONS FROM MEXICAN TESTIMONY CONCERNING RETURN
FLOWS TO MEXICO

One of the leading Mexican authorities on the Treaty
was Engineer Orive Alba, Executive Chairman of the National
Irrigation Commission of Mexico. Concerning the salinity of
return flows from the United States, he said on page 15 of
documents submitted to the hearings before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee:

"As in the case of the Rio Grande, we will only refer to
the Objections of a technical character.

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