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<br />0014J3 <br /> <br />were mistaken about it at the time their Commissioners signed <br /> <br />the Compact and also when they ratified it. <br /> <br />Indeed, this mistake of fact was so phenomenal as to <br /> <br />appear more like a trick of fate. The dendrohydrograph of <br />the Tree Ring Laboratory at the University of Arizona reveals <br /> <br />that the years froml90S to 1931 constitute the wettest <br />prolonged period experienced by the Colorado River Basin <br />between 1564 and 1960.87 Furthermore, the average flow of <br />the River peaked in 1922.88 The principal concern of the <br /> <br />Compact negotiators was flood. Arthur Powell Davis cautioned <br /> <br />this group: <br /> <br />Flood conditions in the Imperial Valley are <br />exceedingly acute. ... If large storage within the <br />next few years is not provided at the Boulder <br />Canyon the results will be disastrous.89 <br /> <br />A few months later Wyoming's Commissioner Frank Emerson <br /> <br />commented upon this menace from a rather different perspec- <br /> <br />tive: <br /> <br />Wyoming and the other Upper states are in a <br />strategic position today that we will never have <br />again. Once means is provided for the construction <br />of a great control reservoir on the lower Colorado <br />the need for support from the Upper states will be <br />largely gone; once the Colorado River bursts <br />through the man-made levees that stand between it <br />and the great Imperial Valley, as it may do any <br />day, public sentiment will force a bill through <br />Congress providing for relief.90 <br /> <br />The Compact Commissioners devoted substantial attention <br />to the question of how much water flowed in the River <br /> <br />system. <br /> <br />The U.S.G.S. had maintained a measuring station <br /> <br />since 1902 at Yuma, downstream from all the tributaries. <br /> <br />-38- <br />