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000170 -5- enaotments and a liberal construction thereof by judioial decrees, as a means of imposing complete federal control of water resouroes in disregard of applicable state water laws." People of Coloradol People of all the Westl Take heed and defend your homes and your rights as Americans. This threat oan be met. Immediate aotion must be taken to foroe a modifi- oation or amendment. If the lower river states in the rain belt need suoh pro- jects, we favor them. But let us divoroe the upper rivers and impose no re- striction upon their present uses. . . Write your Congressional delegations. Send no fonn letters or petitions. State your oase in your own way. Prevent this enoroaohment upon the rights of American citizens. Save our western way of life., KLZ - Saturday, Deoember 11, 1943 People. of Colorado,. This is a warning given by a oitizen of this state against a threat to our way of life--of a danger to our rights as Americans-- to our first great industry. In the last days of October representatives of the seventeen semi-arid states of the West met in Denver. They adopted the report of a speoial oOllllllittee charged with the duty of formulating a policy for the preservation of existing rights in the future development of the agrioultural greatness of the West by the proteotion of their use of irrigation water., A statement of prinoiples was made announoing that the oontrol..regulation and utilization of vmter in the semi-arid states make domestio oonsumption and growing orops t)1e highest users of waterJ and that on projeots designed' for multi- ple uses or the development of power. domestio and irrigation needs shall be paramount to the requirements of hydroeleotrio energy produotion. And then it was boldly stated that the impositi on of Federal regulation under the Commeroe Clause of the United States Constitution to maintain navi- gable oapacity and to regulate floods on the lower reaohes of rivers having their souroes in the arid and semi-arid region. should reoognize the ~x1mum use of water for irrigation purposes. Almost before the governors and attorneys general. the state engineers and water oonsultants and the farmers and the livestook men who attended that meet- ing had reaohed their separate homes, those declarations were ohallenged. A bill was introduoed into the Senate on November 9th which if enaoted into law may destroy everything which the Reclamation Assooiation was organized to protect and preserve. It is to'be known as the Arkansas-White River Basin Aot and proposes to oonstruct and operate dams. reservoirs and allied structures on those two rivers and their tributaries under the direotion of the Secretary of War and the supervision of the Chief of Engineers.