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Last modified
7/14/2009 5:02:35 PM
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UCREFRP
UCREFRP Catalog Number
9367
Author
Colorado Water Workshop.
Title
Proceedings
USFW Year
1992.
USFW - Doc Type
Colorado Water Workshop July 22-24, 1992.
Copyright Material
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All of these things combined to create the climate for <br />negotiation, with Arizona frightened, nervous and standing somewhat <br />apart from the rest. <br />Incidentally, the history of Arizona in this whole saga of the <br />Colorado River, is worth the attention of about ten books. At one <br />point, when Arizona was threatened by something California was doing, <br />the Governor of Arizona mobilized the Arizona State Navy to go out on <br />the Colorado River and stop California and the United States from <br />constructing Boulder dam. Arizona has had a long history of contrary <br />views, and changed positions, but tremendous success in two things: <br />winning law suites and feeding from the federal trough. I may look <br />at what they have done through the years and think it is crazy as <br />hell, but you cannot be critical of the kinds of successes that they <br />have had. <br />The federal authorities were anxious as well for centralized <br />development on the Colorado River. The Bureau of Reclamation had been <br />established in 1902 and it was an agency much enamored with central <br />planning, water management, and believed that state and local <br />jurisdictional boundaries were archaic, produced poor economic <br />results, and did not lead to sound management practices. They <br />believed that what was needed was a federal impartial agency that <br />would completely develop the waters of the river for economic uses. <br />It is obvious this philosophy is out-dated because the focus was <br />solely on the economic advancement of the population of the United <br />States and the West. <br />Mr. Delph Carpenter had a profound suspicion and distrust of <br />centralized federal government. He had a legendary westerners' <br />admiration for people who helped themselves. He was an avid proponent <br />of states' rights and he saw, in the Bureau of Reclamation, evil, <br />unaccountable, centralized planners, who did not give a damn what the <br />citizens who lived here thought. Delph Carpenter, Herbert Hoover and <br />the Arizona State Engineer, Norbiel were the leaders of the compact <br />negotiations. The negotiations continued for eleven months in 1922 <br />and eventually yielded a compact. Hoover was not the type of federal <br />representative that shunted duties off to 37 deputies and second <br />assistants. He personally took a great interest in these <br />negotiations. He was an engineer and essentially, he believed in the <br />same ideas as the Bureau of Reclamation. They believed that there <br />were solutions mankind could develop to deal with the forces of <br />nature, and if one accounted for the vagaries of nature, mankind could <br />conquer nature and run the river to a state of bliss for all <br />concerned. I suspect that some of the internal fighting that occurred <br />in the negotiation of the compact discouraged him, however, I doubt <br />that he was ever driven to despair. He was a force that helped drive <br />the compact that was ultimately adopted. <br />As a lawyer, I like that the Colorado River Compact is only about <br />two pages long, typed. It does not contain many "whereas's." It is <br />a very tight document. The guts of the Compact are contained in <br />Article III. This is called the Apportionment Article. Within this <br />article, the states were divided into the Upper Basin and the Lower <br />Basin. Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming comprise the Upper <br />Basin, and Nevada, Arizona and California are the Lower Basin. The <br />Lower and the Upper Basin were apportioned to receive the exclusive, <br />beneficial consumptive use of 7.5 million acre-feet of water per <br />4
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