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<br />1 <br /> <br />Delph E Carpenter, Father ofInterstate Water Compacts <br />The Evolution of an Innovative Concept <br /> <br />"As you will probably observe through press comment," wrote Delph <br />Carpenter on May 12, 1921, "I am leaving for Washington tomorrow morning <br />in the capacity of the personal representative of Governor [Oliver H.] Shoup to <br />present the matter of National Legislation looking to the settlement of <br />interstate river controversies by treaty between states. I am going with the <br />other western Governors for an interview with the President, particularly <br />respecting the treaty proposition." 1 <br /> <br />Two days prior to beginning this journey, Carpenter had met in Denver <br />with governors, or their representatives, of the seven states of the Colorado <br />River basin. At their request he had drawn up resolutions calling upon the <br />President and Congress to grant consent to the states to enter into a compact <br />dividing the waters of the Colorado River and to choose a federal <br />representative for participation on a joint compact commission. With the <br />assistance of Stephen B. Davis, Jr., New Mexico's delegate, Carpenter <br />prepared appropriate bills for Congress, testified before committees and <br />negotiated in behalf of all seven states during the final days of legislative <br />reconciliation. Most of his cohorts went home early. What came to be known <br />as the Mondell bill passed Congress on August 19, 192 I .2 President Warren <br />G. Harding selected Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover to. represent the <br />United States, announcing his choice only a month before the first meeting of <br />the Colorado River Commission on January 26, 1922.3 Commissioners from <br />the seven states signed and Hoover approved the Colorado River Compact ten <br />months later in Santa Fe on November 24, 1922. <br /> <br />This agreement which divided the Colorado River into an upper and <br />lower basin, guaranteeing to each 7.5 million acre-feet of consumptive water <br />use annually, was the first application of the treaty making powers reserved to <br />the states to settle an interstate river controversy. The Colorado River <br />Compact has Carpenter's brand, but in 1922 only a few people knew that the <br />Colorado attorney had been working diligently for ten years on the compact <br />