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<br />N <br />W <br />en <br />..... <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />headgates, of course, shut off the municipal supply to the City of <br />Mexicali. In order to provide municipal water, it was reported <br />at the meeting, that the city officials of Mexicali ordered the <br />starting of pumps which pumped water from the stale, stagnant sump <br />in the vicinity of Mexicali and, according to people Who visited <br />Mexicali during this time, the water was so foul that even the dead <br />fish in the sump could be tasted in the drinking water coming from <br />the taps. This, of course, was designed to stir up the extremely <br />large populace in Mexicali and probably resulted in the demonstra- <br />tions reported in the newspapers. According to some observers this <br />is a Communist inspired move"and to others, is, ,the, result of the <br />actions of a radical element in that area called ~BrucerosM. In <br />either event, the administration, at least for the city of Mexicali, <br />took actions which aggravated the situation, with the obvious in- <br />tent of provoking an incident which would justify requests for <br />releases outside the provisions of the Treaty. <br /> <br />The International Boundary Commission retained three ex- <br />pert and internationally known irrigation consultants to investigate <br />the alleged problems in Mexico. The probable results of this in- <br />vestigation has been indicated in the telegram received from Secre- <br />tary Udall (see attached). However, there will be some additional <br />inclusions of interest to water users in the united States. It is <br />expected, with a great deal of confidence, that these consultants <br />will cite the lack of drainage facilities in Mexico and the extreme <br />need for such drainage facilities. Irrigation practices in the <br />Wellton-Mohawk Project in Arizona, the Yuma project in Arizona and <br />California, the Imperial Valley, and Coachella valley, both in <br />California, are essentially on a "put and take" basis. That is, <br />enough water is applied to provide the evapotranspiration needs of <br />the irrigated crops, plus sufficient additional water to leach out <br />the salts which will be deposited in the soil because of this <br />evapotranspiration. The water used to leach the salts is collected <br />in subsurfaCe drains and drained off to sumps and/or natural water <br />courses. This is a procedure which the irrigators in the United <br />States take as a matter of course and one which is enforced upon <br />them in order to enable them to live with the quality of the water <br />with which they must irrigate. It is true such a procedure is <br />expensive. However, similar crops are raised in both countries and <br />it would be patently unfair to irrigators in the United States to <br />require that they adhere to costly practices on the one hand and on <br />the other hand take water away from them to provide irrigation <br />water for the Mexicans to grow competitive crops with less costly <br />irrigation procedures. <br /> <br />Mexican farmers pay very little attention to the rela- <br />tionship between the type crop which they attempt to grow and its <br /> <br />Information Bulletin #18 <br /> <br />-7- <br /> <br />January l2, 1962 <br /> <br />'."- <br />,. <br />-A>; <br /> <br />" <br />