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<br />.' y;:rr<" -' ""...~ < "'. <br /> <br />Orl253', <br /> <br />still stand aloof from joining other Basin states in common cause. <br />CAP's troubles are right at home in Arizona under the Gazette's <br />nose. . ." <br /> <br />The Young-Martin Article <br /> <br />Even while the storm over the proposed "super-dam" was <br />subsiding, a new storm blew up over an article attacking CAP <br />as uneconomical and unnecessary. It wasn't the attack that <br />caused the tempest so much as the fact that it came from two <br />University of Arizona faculty members and appeared in a <br />U. of A. publication, Arizona RcdclO. The authors were, Drs. <br />Robert A. Young and William Martin, associate professors of <br />agricultural economics. They contended that the state had <br />enough groundwater to support economic growth for 170 years. <br />They also argued that CAP would subsidize farmers at the <br />expense of municipalities and industry. "The water crisis in <br />Arizona is not as widespread as some believe," said the authors. <br />Nor, they said, had CAP been "clearly established as a satis- <br />factory solution to the problems which in fact do exist." Alter- <br />natives to CAP were available which would permit the economic <br />growth of the state to continue "at its recent rapid rate," said <br />Drs. Young and Martin. <br /> <br />The two U. of A. faculty members advocated gradual eIim- <br />ination of food and feed g-rains and forage crops because they <br />used too much water for the amount of financial return. In their <br />stead Arizona farmers were urged to grow cotton, vegetables, <br />citrus and other fruits which, said the authors, would produce <br />fnur or five times the amount of personal income per acre-foot <br />of water used. <br /> <br />The reactions to the Young-Martin article were, to say the <br />least, brisk. The Water Resources Committee of the Tucson <br />Chamber of Commerce held a special meeting and issued a <br />statement that took sharp issue with the two professors. The <br />committee said that in talking about underground water supply, <br />they failed to point out that much of the water was poorly <br />located for use in populated centers and too poor in quality to <br />be used for people or ind ustry. The committee also emphasized <br />that it wasn't just for agriculture that CAP was needed but to <br />accommodate the rapid immigration and' industrialization being <br />experienced by Arizona. If, said the committee, Arizona did not <br />take steps to utilize the water legally apportioned to it, it might <br />lose the water "by inaction." <br /> <br />James L. Knickerbocker, of the Tucson Gas and Electric <br />Co., said he thought some of the points raised by Drs. Young <br />and Martin were worthy of thought. But Ashby Lohse, Tucson <br />lawyer and former member of the Arizona Interstate Strea~ <br />Commission, insisted that "anything that hurts the Central ArI- <br />zona Project hurts us and we should fight it." <br /> <br />The committee also voted to advise Secretary Udall that it <br />opposed his idea of financing CAP with an ad valorem tax levied <br /> <br />-60- <br /> <br />l <br />