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<br />.. <br /> <br />down, forces it out of ":118 ground; and if that water level were not <br />underneath the ground, i't would go on down in the ground; is that <br />the idea? <br />"Mr. ELDER. The ground-water level maintains the return flow <br />in the river; otherwise 'thero could be no return flow in the sandy <br />channel of the river." <br /> <br />Senator Downey also 'tooJ~ the position that more investigation was necessary <br /> <br />to determine what the physical situations were in the area adjacent to the border. <br /> <br />The possibilities of ground waler utilization was used by him as an example of <br /> <br />of1e phase that needed more study. At pages 1139-1140 the Senator explains: <br /> <br />"Now let me show you another fact hero as a reason why we do <br />not know enough about how to write a treaty. I have already stated <br />that it is well known that down in Lower Caliiornia there is a large <br />body of underground water. We know there is a reduction of the water <br />down there, but nobody has ever been able to guess whether there is <br />a million acre-feet in storage in the ground or 5,000,000 or 10,000,000. <br />Nobody has ever been able to guess, if anyone begins to pump that <br />out in periods of drought, how much he would have; and, most of all, <br />no one has ever been able to guess how much the pumping of 500,000 <br />acre-feet or 200,000 acre-feet or 1,000,000 acre-feet from that reservoir <br />basin might decrease ',he amount of water in the United States that we <br />have that would go dmvn to be credited to Mexico. <br />"I have ta lked to no'ted geologists, and '[hey tell me there is not <br />only the likelihood but the positive certainty 'tha't pumping underground <br />waters in the lower basin will tend to reduce the channel flow that will <br />go-down-to-Mextco--IToM-us-:-Mexico-might-ccrst!ypick-up-anotherl 00-;-0 00 <br />or 300,000 acre-feet during the years she was pumping, which would <br />probably be the drought years. Also, I am wid by all the engineers I <br />have talked to that it will be comparatively simpie for Mexico to put <br />up pumps in the limitrophe section and to pump out and gather in the <br />undcrground waters and keep them from being in the channel when th8Y <br />cross the boundary into ~!;exico. I am positive, Ivir. Chairman and gentle- <br />men, that this is right." <br /> <br />Mr. M. J. Dowd, Consulting Engineer for the Imperial Irrigation District, was <br /> <br />the other witness in opposition to the treaty on technical grounds of water supply. <br /> <br />Mr. Dowd due to his intimatel:nowledge of the awa in the lower basin argued <br /> <br />-37- <br />