BOARD01598

• Board Meeting Date: 9/27/1946
• Description: Table of Contents and Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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"Thia is to formally advise you of the approval of
the Board of my appointment as' suoh Commissioner pursuant
to Seotion 9 of Chapter 265 of the Session Laws of Colorado
1937.

"At this time I wish to report to you respeoting
the meetinga whioh have been held of. the Upper Colorado
River Basin States Commission.

II After the meeting of the Governors of the Upper
Basin States, held at Cheyenne, Wyoming on July 22, 1946,
at whioh time the affeoted statelJ agreed to initiate oom-
paot negotiations, the Commission met for the purpose of
organization at Salt Lake City, Utah on July 31, 1946. At
th&; time Harry W. Bashore, appointed by the President of
the United State a as federal representative on the Commission,
wa$ unanimously eleoted as ohairman. Considerable disoussion
took plaoe respeoting the basia upon whioh the states were
prooeeding with oompaot negotiations. The reoord was made
olear that the states prooeeded in their sovereign oapaoity
to negotiate a oompaot without referenoe to any authorization
oontained in the Boulder Canyon Projeot Aot or in the Colorado
River Compaot itself. It was agreed that before the
apportionment of upper basin Colorado River water oould be made
among the statea or before the obligationa of these statelJ to
make deliveries at Lee Ferry, under the Colorado River Compaot,
oould be determined, it was neoessary to make certain engineering
studies. Accordingly a special oommittee of engineers was
appointed to prepare and submit for the oonsideration of the
Commission a program of engineer studies. The Commissi'on, being
in session for one day, then adjourned to reoonvene at Santa
Fe, New Mexioo on September 17 and 18, 1946.

.

"The second meeting of the Commission waS held at
Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 17 and 18, 1946. The special
engineering oommittee appointed to draft engineering studies, made
its report. The report of this oommittee was adopted. Thereupon
the oommission proceeded to oreate a permanent engineering
oommittee to oonduot the studies proposed by the progr~~ adopted.
As Colorado Commissioner, I designated C. L. Patterson, Chief
Engineer of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, R. J. Tipton,
Consulting Engineer of the Board, and Frank C. Merriell, Engineer-
Seoretary of the Colorado River Water Conservation Distriot
Board, to represent Colorado on this engineering oommittee. The
latter committee held a half day session at the Santa Fe Commission
meeting and made a report baok to the Commission indioating the
manner in whioh this' engineer study would be handled. A meeting
of this oommittee will be held at Denver, Colorado on Ootober 4,
1946. It is anticipated that it will probably take three to four
months before this oommittee is ready to report back to the
oommission, at whioh time the oommission will oonvene to oonsider
these 8tudies.

"At the Santa Fe meeting i"t was also agreed that a
meeting of the oommission should be held in eaoh of the four
upper basin states, Colorado, New t~xioo, Utah and Uyoming,
for the purpose of oonduoting hearings to hear any suggestions