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<br />--~&~2-243-----~- ---- _. <br />36/Friedkin <br /> <br />This opefation required the replacement of that quantity of <br />water from storage above Imperial Dam and in part from wells <br />on the Yuma Mesa to make up the guaranteed delivery of 1.5 <br />million acre-feet. Mexico requested that the United States by- <br />pass the rest of the drainage waters from the Wellton-Mohawk <br />District, amounting to about 100,000 acre-feet annually, for <br />which no substitution would be made. Mexico took the position <br />that It could not use any Wellton-Mohawk drainage waters. <br />and therefore would sacrifice those waters. This further re- <br />duced the salinity of the water diverted by Mexico to about <br />1,000 ppm. <br />In accordance with the Joint Communique, President <br />Nixon announced on August 16, 1972, that he had designated <br />former Attorney General Herbert Brownell as his Special Rep- <br />resentative for resolution of the salinity problem with Mexieo. <br />Mr. Brownell was assisted by an interagency task force con- <br />sisting of representatives from the Department of State, the <br />Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the <br />United States Section of the International Boundary and Water <br />Commission, the Department of Defense (Corps of Engineers!. <br />the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Envi- <br />ronmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology, the <br />Office of Management and Budget. and the Domestic Council. <br />Beginning on September 7, 1972, Mr. Brownell met weekly <br />with the task force and travelled with its members to the Well. <br />ton-Mohawk District, the Yuma Project, the Imperial Valley <br />and several other irrigated areas of the United States along the <br />lower Colorado River. He met three times with the Committee <br />of Fourteen. He met with Governor Love of Colorado and Gov- <br />ernor Williams of ArIzona, and with concerned congressional <br />representatives. Mr. Brownell visited Mexico City to confer <br />with President Echeverria, Foreign Secretary Rabasa and Hy- <br />draulic Resources Secretary Rovirosa. He visited the Mexicali <br />Valley with agricultural and irrigation technicians to obseIVe <br />conditions there, and met with Governor Castellanos of Baja <br />California and other interested Mexican officials. <br /> <br />The Brownell Report <br />Mr. Brownell's December 1972 report, based on his study <br />and discussions, included the following obseIVations: . <br />1. The Quality Differential. The principal issue for Mexico <br />was the difference in quality between the water available to the <br />United States users who divert from Imperial Dam (then about <br />850 ppm) and the water delivered to Mexico under the opera. <br />tion of Minute No. 241 (then about 1,140 ppm). The Mexican <br />position was that a difference of 290 ppm was not acceptable. <br />The main source of the difference in quality was Wellton-Mo- <br />