Laserfiche WebLink
<br />002101 <br /> <br />Buying out and shutting down irrigation operations at <br />Wellton-Mohawk, wholly or in part, was known to be <br />politically unacceptable to the Colorado Basin states, as <br />well as very costly. It had been included on the Task <br />Force's list of solutions for completeness. With the <br />Kissinger decision, a permanent solution based on bypassing <br />drainage and substituting higher-quality water from other <br />sources became impractical or politically unattractive. The <br />volume of water needed would be double that required to <br />achieve salt balance equivalence, and it would be needed in <br />perpetuity. <br /> <br />In his meetings with the Committee of Fourteen, Brownell had <br />already assured the Colorado Basin states that the solution <br />to the Mexican problem would cost them neither water nor <br />money, and would not adversely affect further water <br />resources development in the Basin. Augmentation of the <br />limited and over-appropriated waters of the Colorado was <br />many years away. The states would be unlikely to accept any <br />solution requiring indefinite use of waters in the Basin for <br />substitution. This left two categories of solutions: <br />desalting of return flows and reducing salt loading through <br />improved irrigation management. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Within the Department of the Interior, two groups contended <br />for the Secretary's ear. The Bureau of Reclamation, which <br />had built most of the Federal water resources development <br />projects along the Colorado River, had close ties to water <br />users. Its leadership favored a solution based on salt <br />balance. The Office of Saline Water (OSW) argued strongly <br />for a mammoth desalting plant--the largest in the world. <br />Its leadership saw the Mexican problem as an opportunity to <br />demonstrate the technology whose development it had fostered <br />over twenty years, and to rebuild support for its program. <br /> <br />10 <br />