BOARD01106

• Board Meeting Date: 2/3/1962
• Description: Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

too much control over and we are in the
lap of the Gods to depend upon our supply.

I don't think a single member of this
Board or our able state engineer, who is I
a native of your country, wants to do
any single thing to hurt any area in this
state insofar as water and its uses are
concerned.

As a matter of fact, our budget has
been many many times increased in the last
four or five years so that we can hire the
kind of people that we need in the engineer's
office to make the kind of studies that we
need to make. We found over the years that
some of our neighbors were spending many
many times what we were spending and were
always able to come up with the facts and
we were shadowboxing. Although we had
probably the most vital interest in the
water, yet, we were unprepared to defend
ourselves in the area where it counted, in
the water meetings and Compact Meetings that
are held from time to time around the country.

We have improved our position very
greatly and very eminently over the past
few years. Now we have some information
and we have the engineers and hydrologists
and people to back our point of view. It
has been a great thing for the state and
I want to congratulate the Water Board on
their interest and I want to congratulate
them on their approach to these problems.

You cannot have a solution to problems
that are so vital to our people without
full and open disclosure and without an I
opportunity for the people to be heard
who bend their backs to the sun and work
and use this water. These are people who
are vitally interested in it and they
should have an opportunity to know what
is going on when the decisions are made
and when the policies are formulated.
This meeting that we are having today right
,