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<br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br />I <br /> <br />20 <br /> <br />separation point. 42 But Davis, himself, knew that Carpenter had a better fifty- <br />fifty plan.43 He also knew, as well as Carpenter, that if the commissioners <br />tried to revive the Washington discussions in which they had heatedly disputed <br />dividing the river on an acre-foot or irrigated acreage basis, they would, <br />indeed, fail in their task. He was delighted, therefore, with Carpenter's <br />innovative proposal and hoped that "something of this kind" would be <br />presented at Santa Fe. <br />Hoover also gained confidence in Carpenter during the public hearings <br />and asked him to write up a draft compact based on the fifty-fifty idea.44 <br />Pleased to oblige, Carpenter sent Hoover his first attempt at a Colorado River <br />Compact based on a fifty-fifty division of the water measured at Yuma, <br />Arizona. In a long cover letter, he explained to Hoover that this plan <br />"provide[ d) a permanent basis of allocation and automatically takes care of all <br />questions of tunnel diversions [to Colorado's East Slope], intrastate uses and <br />regulations, local interstate controversies (present and future), extensions of <br />the duty of water . . . and other vexing questions." Additionally he noted that <br />The [Colorado] river basin is similar to a natural hourglass. . . . [N]ature <br />formed the two divisions. By conforming to these natural divisions we <br />arrive at a basis for permanent settlement of all grounds of controversy. <br />All water from the upper division naturally passes Lee's Ferry. All <br />waters not diverted through intermountain tunnels or consumed by plant <br />life and evaporation must inevitably arrive at the funnel mouth at Lee's <br />Ferry. . . . By fixing a minimum average annual flow past Lee's Ferry <br />the upper country is left to develop as time, conditions and opportunities <br />will permit. If the theory of some be true, that one-half of all water <br />diverted and applied to lands automatically returns to the stream, the <br />upper states could make a first use of the entire flow of the river above <br />