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~ All other rights to beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System shall be satisfied solely from the water apportioned to that Basin which they are situate." Comment: This is the provision that would allow water rights perfected by use as of November 24, 1922 to continue unimpaired in the face of compact administration. Boulder Canyon Project Act (1928) After the compact was signed, it was relatively quickly ratified by the legislatures of six of the seven Basin States, but it ran into opposition in Arizona. Opposition to the compact was led by Governor George W. P. Hunt. Arizonans were opposed to the ratification of the compact for a number of reasons. Many in Arizona preferred private development of hydroelectric potential of the Colorado River as opposed to federal development. The major issue was the status of the Gila River. The idea that some Gila River water might have to be used to meet a future Mexican Treaty obligation was unacceptable. In his 1986 paper on the Colorado River, the late John U. Carlson states "to Arizonans the Gila had become a sacred river and its use by others a desecration. ,,65 There is a detailed discussion of the Arizona issues in Hundley's book, (pages 233-276). Arizona's opposition to the ratification of the compact left the Upper Basin in a difficult bind. The compact was written with the intent that it would become effective upon ratification of all seven states and Congress (Article XI), thus Arizona had an effective veto over its implementation. However, pressures to continue and expand water development in the Lower Basin were continuing. On June 28, 1924, the City of Los Angeles made a California filing for a right for a 1,500 cfs pipeline from the Colorado River to the Southern California Costal Plain.66 Ultimately, Los Angeles and its neighbors would form the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to build and operate the project contemplated by this filing. In 1922, 1924 and 1925 and again in 1928 Congressman Phil Swing, whose district included the Imperial Irrigation District, and Senator Hiram Johnson of California introduced federal legislation to authorize construction of an All-American Canal and large mainstem dam in Boulder Canyon. Upper Basin leaders realized that their continued ability to block passage of a Swing-Johnson bill was in jeopardy. Wyoming's Compact Commissioner, Frank Emerson, who would be elected Governor in 1926, would put it quite clearly: "Wyoming and the other Upper States are in a strategic position today that we will never have again. Once means is provided for the construction of a great control reservoir on the lower Colorado the 65 John. V. Carlson, and Alan E. Boles, Jr., "Views of the Law of the Colorado River: An Examination of Rivalries between the Upper and Lower Basins." September, 1986. 66 House Document, 419, page 59. Page -23-