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<br />.' i <br /> <br />5 <br /> <br />~; Although the Wellton-Mohawk drainage was the primary cause <br />~ <br />--J of the increase in salinity, another factor also had a significant <br />r.o <br />~ impact. Beginning in 1961, releases into Mexico were sharply <br /> <br />reduced in anticipation of storage in Lake Powell behind the newly <br /> <br />constructed Glen Canyon Dam. This loss of dilution water can be <br /> <br />emphasized by two figures; for the 10-year period from 1951 to <br />1960, the average delivery to Mexico at the northerly international <br />boundary was 4.24 million acre-feet per year, while for the succeeding <br />10-year period from 1961 to 1970 the flow averaged only 1.5 million <br />acre-feet per year. The Wellton-Mohawk drainage water and the <br />decreased flows caused the average salinity of the waters delivered <br />to Mexico to increase from 800 parts per million in 1960 to 1500 <br />parts per million in 1962. <br />Although, as previously indicated, the United States intended <br />that Mexico must receive return flows below Imperial Dam under the <br />Treaty, no one had anticipated return flows as high in salinity as <br />the Wellton-Mohawk drainage or that there would be such a precipitous <br />rise in the salinity of the waters delivered to Mexico. Consequently, <br />after the winter of 1961-62, the United States undertook certain <br />provisional measures to minimize the impact of the high salinity <br />drainage returns from Well ton-Mohawk. The United States also <br /> <br />entered into negotiations with Mexico to arrive at a practical <br /> <br />solution. The State Department asked the governors of the seven <br />Colorado River Basin states to appoint two members to a reconstituted <br />Committee of Fourteen in order to advise the State Department in con- <br />nection with the Wellton-Mohawk problem. (The current members <br />from California appointed by Governor Reagan are William Gianelli, <br />Director of Water Resources, and myself.) <br />