9407

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 9407
• Author: Water Education Foundation.
• Title: 75th Anniversary Colorado River Compact Symposium Proceedings.
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

some 500 percent, and on the front range in Colo-
rado, an increase of about 125 percent, none of us
anticipated the exponential development of industry
and recreation, the growth of cities in the basin or the
problems associated with irrigated agriculture in
heavily salinated soils. What we truly concluded to be
sufficient water in the Colorado River for all needs
for all time soon became a glaring shortage. The seeds
of controversy for the Colorado River Compact were
sown.
You gentlemen know too well how our miscalcula-
tions have precipitated the very tension and litigation
which the Compact was designed to prevent. Both
Upper and Lower Basins now worry about their
future. You bicker about the Compact and what it
means.
To address a deterioration in relations among you,
your colleagues and the legal profession have sug-
gested revisiting the Santa Fe negotiations to deter-
mine with greater clarity the meaning and intent of
the Compact's articles. This recommendation, may I
suggest, merits your fullest consideration. Time tends
to distort the past and when the essence, emotions
and good will associated with the accomplishment of
great events become disassociated from the deeds
themselves, the works of men become trivialized.
Confusion, pettiness, misinterpretation, and personal
and financial costs take their toll.
Let's try this morning, then, to recreate as best we
can the mood and the spirit of the Santa Fe negotia-
tions as they evolved 75 years ago. And let us do this
through the eyes of Mr. Delphus Emory Carpenter,
duly appointed commissioner from Colorado whose
patience, passion, professionalism, perseverance and
political skills earned accolades from each of his
counterparts. Focusing on Carpenter is not meant to
slight in any way the significant contributions of
Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover or of
representatives of any of the other states. But when all
is said and done, it was Carpenter to whom all of
them paid tribute for his steady hand in 1922 and for
his encouragement and optimism during the debates
leading to the passage of the Boulder Canyon Project
Act. Some of their words:
Mr. McClure, California: "My compliments to
you, Mr. Carpenter, for your unfailing courtesy and
my expression of appreciation for the ability with
which you met all the issues."
Mr. Norviel, Arizona: "You got me in a hell of a
fix, Mr. Carpenter, on purpose I guess, but no man in
the West or the whole United States has had more
experience or is as well posted on water rights,
especially in the adjustment of such matters through
the treaty-making channels of the states and diplo-
macy as yourself."

Mr. Dern, governor of Utah: "I regard you as the
oracle of water matters, and 1 hold you in the very
highest of appreciation and admiration. You are, in
fact, the father of the Colorado River Compacr."
Mr. Ed Mecham, New Mexico: "Nine hundred
and ninety-men out of 1,000 in your condition
would have been in a hospital with a corps of doctors
and nurses. It is your courage, sir, that I admire more
than anything."
Mr. Simms Ely, Arizona: "I shall never forget the
prophetic look that came over your face nor the
clarity of your reason as you pointed out to me in
1920 why that allocation - one half of the total flow
of the Colorado River to the Upper Basin states -
would be
demanded by you
when the time
should come to
frame a treaty.
You and I will not
live to see it, you
said, but within
the next 100
years, perhaps
even within 50
years, water for
irrigation will
have become so
valuable that the
easterly side of
the Rockies will
be pierced by a
tunnel or tunnels
and water will
thus be conveyed to the Plains below. It was then, sir,
that you became the prophet of great things to
come."
Enough said. I haven't even included any of the
accolades of the Coloradans simply to make the point
that from all of the states, Carpenter was looked upon
as the leader in these matters.
For some of us - myself included - an apprecia-
tion of Mr. Carpenter's talents and sacrifices was
delayed by jealousies, fear of the unknown, and an
adherence to traditional posturing. But I know of no
one who worked with the Silver Fox of the Rockies
who did not learn to admire the originality of his
thinking, the exhaustive nature of his research, the
courage of his convictions, and his insistence on what
he called "comity" - the need for courtesy and respect
when negotiating among equals. He was no saint - he
had his human weaknesses. But in terms of interstate
water law, he was a pioneer. And in the later years of
his life, he looked back on Compact negotiations as
his magnum opus.

Nearly 75 years ago, I

THE
S I L VE R
FOX

joined the representatives
of the seven Colorado

River Basin states, their

advisors and Secretary of

Hoover to negotiate the

Colorado River Compact
in this building.

Commerce Herbert

SYMPOSIUM
PROCEEDINGS
MAY 1997r
o