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in by' the Central Arizona aqueduct. aI can last only' 10 years~ sqs Jill Savage, who farms in this area. He figures the water table is dropping about 10 feet a year. WHERE GROWrH IS THREATENED To the north of Pboenis , towns like Prescott, Williams flagstaff and Winslow find their' growth threatened by lack of water. Th.....;.:ough there is substantial runoff in this area, the C()1IIIB\1'ft; ties are bm:r.ed. trom using_at of it. Under Arizona las. water rights belong to those who first use the water... .And. the water from this area has long been taken over by' irrigators down around Phoenix by' ta.}>- ping wch rivers as the Verde. The CentraJ. Arizona Pro- j~t, m~er,_ud~vethe towns in northern Arizona JIOre water through the exchange principle. It works this wq: Water originating in northern Arizona co'Dld be used there. Then, to satisfy prior rights of users below, more water wo'Dld be made available from the aqueduct that taps the Colorado River. Thus, in one wq or another almost all of Arizona looks to the ColoradD River for water to assure its future. SEVEN-STATE PROBLEM. ~ situation is DlUCh the same. throwrhout the seven state.s with l:mti in: the ColOI"~tin ~Aa;". to In Colorado, the once- isolated western slope is stirring with growt.h. Work is soon to start on a tunnel seven miles long through _untaine in central Color- ado to open an all-weather interstate hig~ through the state. - This highway- Interstate 70- will be the Shortest route froll Los Angeles to Chicago when a cutoff in Utah is .. completed. Hopes of such western Cole orado towns as Grand. Junction GleDllOod Springs, Delta, Mon- trose and. Gunnison binge OD .final developaent of the Cel- orado River. Irriga.tion pr0- jects in this area _uld get ..-water from -.rks on trib-, utary streams. Water in quantity will be needed to extract the tril- lions of gaJ.lons of oil new trapped in vast oil-shale deposits in western Color.. SilIilarly, areas of utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico that lie wi thing the Colorado Basin haye their hopes for the future pinned on the big river. Nor do demands on the Col- orado stop at the mountains that rim its basin of 250,000 square JIi.1es. The boom on Colorado's eastern slope would fizzle overnight without the wa- ter brought through the Continental Di- vide from the headwaters of the river. With this water, big growth is seen for such cities and towns as Denver, Colorado Springs, Boulder, Pueblo, Greeley, Loveland and Fort Collins-. Deadline: 1990. This growth, how- ever, will outrun available water by 1990, according to Felix L. Sparks, di- rector of the Colorado water-conserva- tion board. Mr. Sparks sees importation of water from the Northwest, or some other source, as essential for Colorado's future. . . In Utah, the Salt Lake City area looks forward to water. brought through the mountains from branches of the Green River, one of the Colorado's big- g~t tributaries. New Mexico's largest city, Albuquer- que, is awaiting completion of the San Juan-Chama diversion project to bring water through the mountains from the Colorado Basin. At the lower end of the. basin is the granddaddy of all diversion projects- the long pipelines and aqueducts that supply the Metropolitan Water. District of Southern California, which provides water to a vast area. Begun in 1931, this diversion carries 1.2 million acre- .feet annually. A California engineer pre- dicts that, when and if the Centr,,'\l Arizona Project is built, "one whole tube of our aqueduct will have to be dried up." That is because the U. S. Supreme Court, in 1963, settled the long Cali- - .2. 5- lamia-Arizona war by awarding Arizona the water it hopes to get through the Auizona aqueduct. Califomia water engineers plan to re- place the lost water with supplies brought from northern California by a State water project, now under construc- tion. This big project will meet the needs of southern California's. growth to around 1990. After that, importation of more water will be needed. In Nevada, the boom on the desert in the Las Vegas area is dependent on Col- orado River water. And finally, Mexico is guaranteed 1.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River wa- ter each year by a treaty with the U. S. When all the promises are added up, they come to more water than the Colo- rado River produces in an average ye-ar. History of a river; How did the river get overcommitted? Those who lenow the long history of the fight over Southwestern water sav that the ex- planation is simple. . Back in the 1920s, when waters of the Colorado were apportioned, the ba- sin had produced an average runoff of more than 17 million acre-feet annually over a period of 20 years. The water was divided on the basis of a comparable supply in future years. . Since then, however, the river has produced an average of only 13 million acre-feet a year of usable water. Inten- sive effort is under wav to increase run- off. U. S. Interior Department officials credit weather modification-largely by cloud-seeding-with some increase in snowfall in the mountains. The river is being straightened in some areas, thus reducing water loss through seepage. Open aqueducts and irrigation canals arE being lined with concrete. But the best yield that can be expect. ed from the Colorado River in the fu. ture, according to official studies, ~ about 14.9 million acre-feet of wutel annually. While the problem can be easily ex- plained, it is difficult to solve. The Ileee is for at least 2.5 million acre-feet oj water from outside the basin, just tc meet commitments already made. Help from the Columbia? The bil providing for final development of thE Colorado River calls for a study oj ways to import water from outsidE sources into the Colorado Basin. The most likely source, most expertl agree, is the Columbia River. States 0 the Columbia Basin, however, haven' been particularly eager to share thei: water with the Southwest. Savs Senator Henry M. JacksOI (De~.), of Washington: "I am disturbec by demands for hasty commitment to : massive program for transporting vas quantities of water over long distance~