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<br />,r~{~~~} <br /> <br />N <br />N <br />N <br />-..l <br /> <br />Western States Water Council <br />Meeting <br /> <br />Boise, Idaho <br />April 12, 1974 <br /> <br />If an irrigation project is to survive, the tonnage of saltin <br />its drainage waters must at least equal the tonnage of salt in the <br />water applied to project lands. The Committee of Fourteen <br />held that the return of drainage waters in salt balance, or equivalent <br />salt balance, was both fair and reasonable and represented an <br />equitable measure of an upstream diverter's responsibility to <br />those who diverted downstream. The Committee of Fourteen <br />strongly supported negotiations with Mexico based, on the equivalent <br />salt balance concept. Mexico, however,. refused to negotiate on this <br />basis even though in 1962 her representatives had urged the achieve- <br />ment of salt balances as a solution to the Wellton-Mohawk aspect of <br />the problem. <br /> <br />On June 17, 1972, in a meeting with President Echeverria, <br />President Nixon expressed his desire for a "definitive, equitable, <br />and just solution" to the problem and announced that he was <br />prepared to undertake certain actions immediately to improve the <br />salinity of waters delivered to Mexico and to designate a special <br />representative to develop a permanent solution, <br /> <br />In furtherance of this announcement the two governments <br />approved Minute 241 on July 14, 1972. This agreement provided for <br />an increase in the amount of Wellton-Mohawk drainage waters by- <br />passed to the Gulf annually without charge against the treaty from <br />the 50,000 acre-feet of Minute 218 to a level of 118,000 acre-feet. <br />Replacement of the water so wasted was to be effected by releases <br />from Imperial Dam and by waters pumped from wells on the Yuma <br />Mesa. Operations under Minute 241 resulted in reductions in the <br />average annual salinity of waters made available to MexiCo from <br />1240 ppmin 1971 to 1140 ppm for the year ending June 30, 1973. <br /> <br />On August 16, 1972, President Nixon designated former Attorney <br />General Herbert Brownell, Jr., as his special representative and <br />charged him with developing a permanent solution to the Mexican <br />salinity problem. <br /> <br />Following almost a year of intensive negotiations with the <br />representatives of the Republic of Mexico on the one hand and <br />representatives of the federal government and the states of the <br />Colorado River Basins on the other, Ambassador Brownell <br />and Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico, Emilio O. <br />Rabasa reached agreement. On August 30, 1973, <br /> <br />~ <br />"; <br /> <br />A-5 <br />