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<br />- <br />- <br />r:-: <br />C\I <br /> <br />~. The Central Arizona Project <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />10 <br /> <br />_r.l!~'_ <br /> <br />Several hundred thousand acres of desert land in Maricopa and Pinal counties <br />were converted into farms and irrigated with groundwater during World War II <br />(1939-1945), When the war ended, Salt River Valley agricultural and business <br />leaders began calling for the construction of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) to <br />bring a supplemental water supply from the Colorado River to Maricopa and Pinal <br />counties. These leaders, worried about pumping the underground reservoir dry, <br />wanted to sustain the area's farm economy but to do it with surface water from <br />Arizona's unused share of the Colorado River. <br /> <br />Spearheaded by the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce Colorado River Commit- <br />tee, the farm and business leaders organized the Central Arizona Project Associa- <br />tion (CAPA) in 1946, Its purpose was to lobby Congress to authorize the CAP <br />under federal reclamation law, and to educate Arizonans about the need for the <br />CAP. <br /> <br />Neither the CAPNs founders nor the state's political leadership foresaw the <br />state's explosive post-war population growth. Most of the growth occurred in <br />Maricopa and Pima counties. In a few decades, almost all the farmland between <br />Phoenix and its suburbs was transformed into one of the nation's largest urban <br />centers with a population topping two million by 1990, <br /> <br />In those years, community leaders in Central and Southern Arizona eyed the <br />CAP as a means for delivering Colorado River water to supply their growing <br />populations. Indian leaders also looked toward the Colorado River as a source for <br />satisfying historic water claims for their reservations, <br /> <br />Before any of these things could happen, however, Arizona had to overcome <br />opposition by California water interests to congressional authorization of the CAP. <br />California's congressmen pushed a resolution through the House Committee on <br />Interior and Insular Affairs on April 8, 1951. It delayed consideration of CAP <br />legislation "until such time as the use of the water in the Lower Colorado River <br />Basin is either adjudicated, or binding mutual agreement as to the use of the water <br />is reached by the states (Arizona, California and Nevada) of the Lower Colorado <br />River Basin," <br /> <br />Having negotiated unsuccessfully with California since the 1920s, Arizona <br />elected to take the dispute to the US, Supreme Court. Arizona's position was that <br />