WSP05309 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

-5- ~i1~~~~~ " . ~ - ~~tfl .~:\..:.:~<~.:,'....,.::.: ;~:.:.: ~..::. .'::-": :..:0' : >';;"~1~~~1;>.i .- ""'"'. ;Oij20~1 The Central Arizona Project: A Review of Events 1961-68 In the summer of 1967, as our new fiscal year opened, the Central Arizona Project was out of the Senate Interior Com- mittee and in such a form as to contain something for every- one: CAP for Arizona, 4.4-milIion-acre-foot priority to Cali- fornia for 27 years, five projects for Colorado, Dixie Project for Utah, Hooker Dam for New Mexico and sundry other items adding up to a $1.2 billion package. Still, not everyone was satisfied. California didn't like it, despite the fact that the 27-year priority corresponded to the amortization schedule for the Metro- politan Water District aqueduct. U. S. Sen. Thomas Kuchel (R-Calif.) called it "a Pyrrhic victory for Arizona gained at tremendous cost to most Colorado River water users." Cali- fornia's Governor Ronald Reagan regretted that the "committee did not recognize that the only permanent solution is to aug- ment the river's supply'." Northcutt Ely, special counsel for the Colorado River Board of California, denounced the measure as representing a "complete sellout by Arizona to the Northwest and the conservationists" because there was no provision in the bill for importation of Columbia River water into the Colorado River basin. Also it did not provide for the building of Hualapai (Bridge Canyon) Dam, which was vigorously opposed by con- servation organizations. Mr. Ely attacked what he described as "Arizona's unjusti- fied decision to ram this bill through committee." He said it destroyed "the Colorado River basin's hope for a real seven- state agreement on a solution to our mutual water problems." The California lawyer charged that Secretary of the In- terior Stewart Udall had abandoned his support of the basin- wide development concept as embodied in HR 4671 in the pre- vious Congress. In so doing, said Mr. Ely, the secretary had "disgracefully repudiated all the inducements of regional co- operation he endorsed last year." The new bill, in Mr. Ely's view, marked "a retrogression to the dark days of Colorado River strife and internecine conflict which we had hoped were behind us." He further indicted Arizona's "brazen provision" to tap Hoover Dam power revenues to help pay for Arizona's project as a violation of a fundamental principle of the Boulder Canyon Project Act. By contrast, said Mr. Ely, Californians paid for the AIl-American Canal themselves, taking "not a dime" from Hoover Dam revenues. Without three basic ingredients-a 4.4 priority in perpe- tuity, a water import and Hualapai Dam-California should never accept the Central Arizona Project, Mr. Ely concluded, because it would be merely a "one-state project."