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<br />C' , I';-')-fj' . <br />'L (li[..U <br /> <br />Raphael J. Moses <br />Colorado <br /> <br />I recall the period of the Brownell Task Force as a discouraging, distressing part <br />of my career. The reactivation of the Committee of Fourteen seemed like a <br />convenient way to pay lip service to the Basin States' interests without their really <br />having much of a say in things. <br /> <br />The Committee did meet at least twice with Ambassador Brownell and his Task <br />Force. I do recall a meeting with the State Department lawyers, who persuaded <br />us that we really couldn't give Mexico just any kind of water. They pointed out <br />that we might be able to make a case in International Court, but the U.S. would <br />get a black ey!'l for trying. And as a lawyer, the more I got into it, the more <br />inequitable it seemed [to insist on strict application of the appropriation doctrine]. <br />But in meeting with the Task Force, I always had a feeling that we were eat's <br />paws. Our constant complaint was that every time we told the Brownell and <br />[Samuel] Eaton our bottom line, they would come back the next day and start <br />negotiating from that position. <br /> <br />The only time I met any of the members privately was when Governor Love <br />invited my wife and me to dinner with the Brownells shortly after he was <br />appointed. The matter of the Colorado River came up, but the conversation was <br />.~ pretty general, since he had not really had time to become familiar with the issues. <br />And I did not accompany Brownell on his tour of the Yuma area. <br /> <br />We did meet more frequently with IBWC Commissioner Joe Friedkin. Joe was <br />really the liaison-Brownell didn't speak much Spanish, and Joe is fluent. He is <br />also a man of complete integrity, whom the Mexicans trusted and respected. I <br />think Brownell relied heavily on him. <br /> <br />In the end, we wound up doing the same thing we always do-throwing money at <br />the problem. Everyone on the Committee of Fourteen except Arizona thought <br />that Wellton-Mohawk should be bought out and shut down-it was so obviously the <br />source of the problem, and most of the crops they were growing were subsidized <br />anyway. The Bureau of Reclamation had no business expecting Mexico to take <br />that drain water-it was bad! But because of Arizona's opposition (and Carl <br />Hayden's being Chairman of Senate Appropriations), it wouldn't fly politically. <br /> <br />We all favored a settlement based on salt balance. We felt it was fair, and could <br />have been achieved without building a desalting plant. Mexico rejected it, as they <br />did the U.S. offer to bypass the remainder of the Wellton-Mohawk drainage <br />without charging them for it. I think the Mexicans felt that they had us on the <br />defensive, and wanted to get as much out of the situation as they could. <br /> <br />brownell,rpl <br /> <br />B-? <br /> <br />September 1991 <br />