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<br />.. ' <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />minerals and other natural resources, but we do not have an abundance <br />of water. We strongly believe that we should have a major voice in <br />determining the use of our limited water resources. Just as strongly, <br />we reject the idea that those wholly unfamiliar with our circumstances <br />should made decisions for us. <br />Those not familiar with the Colorado situation tend to view the <br />four Colorado River projects as having been individually conceived and <br />wholly unrelated. This is not the case. In 1921 as a result of <br />continuing controversy over the waters of the Colorado and a series of <br />destructive floods in the lower reaches of the river, the seven states <br />of the Colorado River Basin entered into negotiations to effect an <br />equitable division of the waters of the Colorado River among those <br />states. The completed Colorado River Compact was signed by the respec- <br />tive commissioners of each of the seven Colorado River Basin states and <br />by Herbert Hoover as a representative of the United States on <br />November 24, 1922. That compact made possible the subsequent con- <br />struction of Hoover Dam in Nevada for the benefit of the Lower Division <br />states. Then came the Mexican Treaty and the Upper Basin Compact. <br />The Colorado River in Colorado produces about seventy percent of <br />the total surface flows of our state. It is therefore our major <br />source of water. Yet we have seen that major source shrink to a <br />minuscule proportion through the execution of an international treaty <br />and two interstate compacts. This may help explain our desperate and <br />last ditch fight to save what little water remains to us. It was <br />recognized during the negotiation of the two interstate compacts <br />referred to that the provisions of those compacts could never be met <br />unless major storage facilities were built on the Colorado River above <br /> <br />-2- <br /> <br />2553 <br />