BOARD02250

• Board Meeting Date: 8/6/1951
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

42

Relative to the proposed Paonia Project, Colorado, the Director reported that
prospects for amended authorization during the present session of nongress did not
appear encouraging; that the Bureau of Budget had not yet released its report on this
project to the Congress; and that he had had no information on the subject during
the last thirty days.

The next order of business Yl8.S Item 7 on the agenda "Repon on the Proposed
Colorado River Storage Project and Participating Projects." .

I

The Director stated that he was advised that all of the Colorado River Basin
states had submitted their official comments, under ~ection 1 of the 1944 Flood
Control Act, to the Secretary of the Interior, and that no state, including Califor-
nia, had offered any objections or adverse comments to the project proposal. He
explained, howe:ver, that the California comments., although favorable on their face,
might well be interpreted to contain the basis for objections when hearings were held
before the committees of Congress. He said that the report of the Bureau of Reclamation
on the project had not been submitted to the Congress or to the Bureau of the Budget
. by the Secretary of the Interior.

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m.

Morning Session

Tuesday, August 7, 1951

The meeting was called to order at 9:10 a.m. by Vice Chairman George J. Bailey.

The first order of business was Item 3 on the agenda, "Further consideration of
the report submitted by the Attorney for the Board at the last meeting concerning
conference with Colorado Congressional delegation on prospective interstate litigation
which may be initiated in the lower Colorado River Basin. This will include a further
report on the action of the Upper Colorado River Commission at its meeting on Jlme 2-3,
1951 on this matt~r. (Consideration should be given to including in the minutes of
the August 6-7 Board meeting the resolution passed by the Upper Colorado River Com-
mission on this question."

Director Stone referred to the minRtes of the meeting of the Colorado Water Con-
servation Board held on 1~y 25, 1951. He called attention to the fact that this meeting
was devoted entirely to the question of litigation vW.ich may be instituted by a state
of the Lower Basin of the Colorado River over the waters of that River. He called
particular attention to the resolution adopted by the Board at that meeting (see. Vol.
II, pp.270, of the minutes of the Board). This resolution, he pointed out, revoked
the former position of the Board opposing interstate litigation before the Supreme
Court of the United States over water of the Colorado River, and authorized the I
Director of the Board, who is also Colorado. member of the Upper. Colorado River
Commission, and the attorney for the Board, who is a member of the le gal conunittee
of the Conunission, to use their best judgment in representing the 'State of Colorado
on th~ subject of such litigation at meetL~gs of the Upper Colorado River Commission
and its legal committee. The Director said that following the adoption of this Board
resolution, there was held in Salt Lke City a meeting of the legal committee of the
Upper ColoradO River Conunission on the subject of threatened litigation and that