WSP00291

• File Number: 8278.400
• Description: Title I - Mexican Treaty
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 3/1/1962
• Author: IBWC
• Title: Mexican Water Treaty -Appendix B - Water Quality A Missing
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Publication

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"(al Quality. --State Department witnes ses testified that
it was the intention of the American negotiators to so word the
treaty as to require ~.';exico to accept the water delivered at the
boundary 'without regard to quality.' The treaty does not so
state. The majority report, without expressly saying so, appears
to adopt the interpretation that the phrases requiring Mexico to
accept water 'froll: any and all sources' and prohibiting her from
demanding more than the allotted water 'for any purpose whatso-
ever' amount to a statement that Mexico must accept water
regardless of its usability. .
"Dr. T imm, a State Department official and one of the
negotiators, speaking to the Committee of Sixteen at Salt Lake
in January of 19'14, said:
'There was frankly strenuous obj ection on the
part of Mexico. They objected to the omission of
the quality but we succeeded in evading it.'
"Mr. Tipton, another negotiator, testified that the Americans
handed the MeXicans a memorandum showing what the Americans
meant by the language. No one testified that the Mexican negotiators
ever agreed to the American interpretation. Although requested,
the memorandum was never put in evidence.
"After American irrigation proj ects have been fully developed
in the United States, there will reappear in the Colorado River,
below diversion points from which it can be used in the United
States, a substantial quantity of 'return flow' which will be
delivered to Mexico in the performance of the treaty stipulations.
That water, due to the fact that it has been repeatedly used,
will be salinc, possibly to such an cxtcnt as to be useless for
irrigation. If Mexico can in future years require the United
States_ to letdown usable_water.in the- g.uaranteed amount, the-
burden on the Unitc;d States will be greatly increased. There
should be an cxpress stipulation that thc water is to be accepted
regardless of quality."

In ord8r to se8 the whole picture we shall now quote the language of the

treaty which bears on the quality qU8stion. Article 10 reads as follows:

"Of the waters of the Colorado Rivcr, from any and all
sources, there arc allotted to Mexico:
"(a)
"(b) . . . Iv:exico shall acquirc no right b8yond that
provid8d by this subparagraph by the US8 of the waters of
the Colorado River system for any purpose whatsoever, in
excess of 1,500,000 dcre-feet. . . annually." (Emphasis Ours)

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