WSP02185

• File Number: 8272.100.70
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 9/1/1991
• Title: The Brownell Task Force and the Mexican Salinity Problem - A Narrative Chronology of Events
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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Agricultural Res~ch Service (ARS) and Soil Conservation Service (SCS). (A listofWor~g
Group members is also included in Appendix A.)

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The Task Force and the Working Group began work immediately after Brownell was sworn in.
Two sets of quesqons faced them. One concerned the international legal aspects of water quality
differences, and included such questions as-

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Is Mexico legally obligated to accept Wellton-Mohawk drainage as part of its
treaty allotment?

Is~e U.S. legally justified in limiting the improvement in water quality to salt'
ballmce equivalence?

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Do'Mexican water users have a right to receive water of the same quality as
Anierican water users who are served by Imperial Dam?13

The other set dealt with the means of guaranteeing the quality of water delivered' to MexicQ,
whatever the eveptual salinity level-the "technical" solutions. . The short-and long-term
measures to be cohsidered were much the same as those that had been presented to President
Nixon earlier that year.

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For three weeks ,in September of 1972, the Working Group heard presentations on the
international legal iissues and debated the merits of various positions. Then, as Brownell and
Eaton noted in a 1975 article, these questions were set aside. 14 Certainly the StateDCi!Partment's
desire for a negoti~ted settlement that would avoid the possibility of litigation in an international
court played a plU'ti inWs decision, but the orders came from the head of the National Security
Council-Henry Kissinger.

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The National Security Council was the only concerned agency in the Executive Office of the
President that was inot represented on the Task Force or Working Group, despite Kissinger's
wellcknown interest in' U.S.~Mexican relations. As National Security Advisor; he must have
been involved in briefing Nixon for the Echeverria visit and in preparation of the joint
communique of June. But his position on the issues and his role were unknown to others in the
Executive Office.

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On September 26, the office of Assistant Secretary of the Interior James Smith received a
message from the NSC: the salt balance approach of Minute No. 241 was to be an interim
solution only. The'final solution would require elimination of the effects of Wellton-Mohawk
on salinity levels. IS . Wesley Steiner of Arizona, then Chairman of the Committee of Fourteen,
remembers hearing 'the same message from Brownell and Eaton in one of their early meetings
with the Committee; during which the word of Kissinger's involvement came out. 16 Butmost
members of the Working Group and Task Force remained unaware of the change in policy.

Kissinger's directive-to eliminate the effects of Wellton-Mohawk on water deliveries to
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Mexico-reduced th~ allowable salinity differential at Morelos Dam to about 100 ppm.(Because
all return flows froin the project were being bypassed under Minute No. 241, this was the

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