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<br />, <br />........ <br /> <br />n--/A7 <br />t':~.. (" ,,;, ~i <br /> <br />The National Security Council was the only concerned agency in the Executive <br />Office of the President that was not represented on the Task Force or Working <br />Group, despite Kissinger's well-known interest in U.S.-Mexican relations. As <br />National Security Advisor, he must have been involved in briefing Nixon for the <br />Echeverria visit and in preparation of the joint communique of June. But his <br />position on the issues and his role were unknown to others in the Executive Office. <br /> <br />On September 26, the office of Assistant Secretary of Interior James Smith <br />received a message from the NSC: the salt balance approach of Minute No. 241 <br />was to be an interim solution only. The final solution would require elimination <br />of the effects of Wellton-Mohawk on salinity levels.15 Wesley Steiner of Arizona, <br />then Chairman of the Committee of Fourteen, remembers hearing the same <br />message from Brownell and Eaton in one of their early meetings with the <br />Committee, during which the word of Kissinger's involvement came out.16 But' <br />most members of the Working Group and Task Force remained unaware of the <br />change in policy. <br /> <br />Kissinger's directive-to eliminate the effects of Wellton-Mohawk on water <br />deliveries to Mexico-reduced the allowable salinity differential at Morelos Dam <br />to about 100 ppm. (Because all return flows from the project were being bypassed <br />under Minute No. 241, this was the salinity level the Mexicans were experiencing <br />.' at the time.) It cut off legal arguments over parity and salt balance. And it greatly <br />lil';,narrowed the range of options available to improve water quality. <br /> <br />'!:\' <br />Buying out and shutting down irrigation operations at Wellton-Mohawk, wholly or <br />in part, was thought to be politically unacceptable to the Colorado Basin states, <br />as well as very costly. It had been included on the Task Force's list of solutions <br />for completeness. With the Kissinger decision, a permanent solution based on <br />bypassing drainage and substituting higher-quality water from other sources <br />became impractical or politically unattractive. The volume of water needed would <br />be double that initially required to achieve salt balance equivalence, and it would <br />be needed in perpetuity. <br /> <br />In his meetings with the Committee of Fourteen, Brownell had already assured the <br />Colorado Basin states that the solution to the Mexican problem would cost them <br />neither water nor money, and would not adversely affect further water resources <br />development in the Basin. Augmentation of the limited and over-appropriated <br />waters of the Colorado was many years away. The states would be unlikely to <br />accept any solution requiring indefinite use of waters in the Basin for substitution. <br />This left two categories of solutions: desalting of return flows and reducing salt <br />loading through improved irrigation management. <br /> <br />Within the Department of the Interior, two groups contended for the Secretary's <br />ear. The Bureau of Reclamation, which had built most of the Federal water <br />resources development projects along the Colorado River, had close ties to water <br />users. Its leadership had favored a solution based on salt balance. The Office of <br /> <br />brownell,rpl <br /> <br />7 <br /> <br />September 1991 <br />