WSP10281

• File Number: 8278.300
• Description: Title I - Mexican Treaty
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 9/1/1991
• Author: Anne DeMarsay CRBSCF
• Title: The Brownell Task Force and the Mexican Salinity Problem - A Narrative Chronology of Events
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

Myron B. Holburt
California

My involvement with the Mexican salinity problem goes back to the mid-1960s. I joined the
Colorado River Board in August 1965, and attended Committee of Fourteen meetings after that
date. Shortly after I became Chief Engineer in March 1968, the Governor appointed me a
member of the Committee.

As far as the Committee's initial position, everyone had decided to support Wellton-Mohawk.
Rationally, I think Ariwna would have been better off without the project, but there was a lack
of urban influence at the time. No one spoke up for the Central Arizona Project. If Arizona
had supported the purchase of land from farmers in the Wellton-Mohawk District by the U.S.,
there would have been a more dependable water supply for CAP. Everyone on the Committee
was, of course, opposed to any continuing use of upstream storage water unless it was replaced.

The Committee of Fourteen met several times with Ambassador Brownell, Sam Eaton, and the
Task Force. Some of the Task Force and Working Group members talked to me privately-I
remember talking to Sam Eaton, Pat O'Meara, Jim Smith, and Jan van Schilfgaarde-but our
conversations were usually at meetings. I did tour the Yuma area with Brownell; I think most
of the Committee of Fourteen were there. As I recall, the Bureau of Reclamation led the tour,
and its representatives talked mostly about technological solutions to the salinity problem.

The real force behind the choice of a desalting plant as a solution to the salinity problem with
Mexico seemed to be the State Department. Once Echeverria made salinity a major issue, the
State Department found it attractive. Here was a problem they could solve by spending
money-unlike other major problems like drugs, trade, and immigration. Brownell was a very
good politician who realized the influence of the Committee of Fourteen, and promised that the
solution wouldn't cost the states money or water. He did not believe that there was any practical
alternative.

At one time the U.S. talked about improving the agricultural systems in the Mexicali Valley [to
reduce the effects of salinity] but the Mexicans would not agree to this as a potential solution.
There were supposed to be groundwater agreements, too, but they never materialized either.

Because of the State Department's strong interest, Brownell went ahead with the negotiation of
the Minute [No. 242] even though there were some unsettled issues with the states-replacement
of the brine stream, and providing power for the desalting plant and the groundwater pumping
along the border. The figure of 115 ppm ::1:30 ppm was drawn from historical data-a weighted
average of the salinity differential over some period of years. It was sound; I remember that
we checked it independently. The Minute itself never mentioned the desalting plant. I always
thought that Mexico insisted on this so that they would still have the guarantee even if the
desalting plant was never built.

B-3