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

,

"The committees of 14 and 16, of the 7 basin States, have
gone on record and have more or less established the conditions
of this water allocation. It is the very formula that we accepted
and used in pursuing the negotiation of the treaty with Mexico.
One of the particular things was the very definite idea that we
account for, and not disregard, and get credit for the United
States for all those return flows, because there were engineers
on that committee who realized that it would amount to quite
a large figure--water which of course Mexico would get any-
way, whether there is any treaty or not. In other words, the
return flow to the river, particularly from the Gila, arrives at
the Colorado at a point, where it is hardly useful to us. There
could be, of course, enormous pumping plants to take water from
the river to the All-American Canal; but it is water that would
arrive there anyway and be available to Mexico.
"We were instructed, and we carried out those instructions,
by the committee of 14 and 16 that we would get an accounting
of that large amount of return flow that would be available to
Mexico, and that the difference between that and the 1,500,000
acre-feet was not established by the Department of State or the
International Boundary Commission, but was established by the
majority of the States of the drainage area."

This last statement by Mr. Lawson clearly indicates that the State Department

had been appraised of the need to see that Mexico did not get free water. It

also indicates that the possibility of future development in the Upper Basin

. _~ j1l.p_arttcu!il.C was. responsible for _these.- treaty-provisions..- --- - --

4. Mr. Clayton, the attorney for the Boundary Commission, explained

Articles 10 & 11 of the treaty at page 107 of the Hearings. He was particularly

concerned with "from any and all sources" found in Article 10 and "wherever

these waters may arrive" found in Article 11. He pointed out:

"The representatives of the United States insisted upon
those words in the treaty. They were objected to by Mexico,
for the simple and obvious reason that the United States wanted
to secure credit for all water of any kind, wherever it might come
from, that actually flowed across the boundary line, whether it
was drainage water from projects within the United States or whether
it was used for sluicing upstream and could not be put to beneficial
use below, or flood waters, or waste waters of whatever kind."
B 7