WSP11181

• File Number: 8200.300.40
• Description: Colorado River Compact
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 9/1/1991
• Author: CSU
• Title: Delph Carpenter - Father of Colorado River Treaties - Text of Gov. Ralph L. Carr's 1943 Salute to Delph Carpenter
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

the Rio Grande, between the states of
Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, which
had been aggravated by an international
snarl with Old Mexico. This cause had
potentialities for strife and conflict, and
conceivably, for war.

For several hundred years the people along
the lower Rio Grande near EI Paso and in
Mexico south of that city, had diverted the
water of the Great River of the North to
irrigate crops of grain, of vegetables, of
tropical fruits - yes, even of grapes from
which wines were pressed which challenged
the pride of the vineyards of the Old World.
Enormous agricultural developments in the
'80s in the San Luis Valley of Colorado
resulted in the construction of irrigation
enterprises, some with main land canals
carrying water thirty to forty-five miles from
their river headgates, A similar development
in New Mexico attended.

The people of the Republic of Mexico
concluded that their thirst was attributable to
the great irrigation development upstream,
The government of the Republic of Mexico
went straight to Washington, and to quiet the
demands of the sister nation an international
treaty was executed whereby the United
States bound herself to deliver to the Acequia
Madre - the Mother Canal near the City of EI
Paso, Texas - 60,000 acre feet annually to
be used for irrigation by the farmers of
Mexico. In order to accomplish this delivery
and to assure the performance of the treaty
obligation, the Department of the Interior
issued an order forbidding the construction of
any reservoir with a capacity in excess of one
thousand acre feet on the upper reaches of

6

the Rio Grande in New Mexico and Colorado,
Then to make the promise doubly good, the
Interior Department withdrew from homestead
entry forty acre tracts at strategic points
along the river beds of the upper streams
and tributaries, This embargo, with
modifications and amendments, continued in
full force for nearly 30 years,

I)elph Carpenter set himself once again to
aCcomplish the impossible, An armistice was
signed in 1929 which gave the states
courage and permitted development over a
six-year period, When the armistice ended a
complete survey of the Rio Grande Basin
from the headwaters near Creede, Colorado,
to Fort Quitman, Texas, below EI Paso, was
accomplished by the National Resources
Planning Board aided by the three states,
His illness prevented him from attending the
later conference on the Rio Grande after the
armistice was ended. A permanent compact
was concluded in March, 1938.

Delph Carpenter's oft repeated statement,
that any river question could be settled by
any group of men with all the facts in their
possession who were honestly bent on
reaching an agreement, was proved true,

People living on the streams where Delph
Carpenter acted are not the only ones whose
lives have been benefited by his efforts.
Recently a compact on the Republican River
between the states of Nebraska, Kansas, and
Colorado was executed and ratified by the
Congress only to be vetoed by the President
because of pronouncements which, it was
asserted, might affect power development. A
new version which meets this Objection has