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o ~ 12 81RKANSAS RIVER COMPACT 11 Our commission first met in 1946, after the authorization py Con-. gress; which consented to negotiations and the appointment of the Federal representative, General Kramer. The negotiations have been most prolonged due to the fact that we were obliged in a sense to make two compacts, a compact with Kansas and a compact among our own water interests in Colorado. They represented many difficulties and would explain perhaps the undue prolongation of the situation. . . Moreover, out of the total group of eight who originally started, we have had sicknes.se~, ill hea~th on the part of practically all the mem- bers of the commISSIOn, I thmk, except Mr. Ireland.. . We C90perated and had the valuable cooperation of our water board, of which J'udge Stone is the director, and which is charged with the handling of interstate water problems; and Mr. Breitenstein, the at- torney for the board, was also very cooperative and gave us a great deal of valuable help; and Mr. Hinkley, recently attorney general for two terms in Colorado, participated in our ne~otiations. If I am permitted to bore you, perhaps, I enjoyed the sItuation, although it was fraught with many annoyances and inconveniences. .We had, of course, the valuable help of the Federal representative, General Kramer, who well sustained his part of adviser and the ironing out of difficulties and conflicts. The Kansas representatives were most cooperative; and the Federal agencies; all that we dealt with that were interested, particularly the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army the Bureau of Recla- matIOn, the Power Commission, Wildlife, and nmerous others who participated at various times in our negotiations. . The controversy originated more than 50 years ago. Nature affects the situation more than in ordinary cases. In the years of abundant water supply nobody said anything; in the years of short supply some- body wanted to start a lawsuit. A brief resume of these lawsuits is contained in the report that our commission filed with our Governor and legislature before it was submitted to our legislature. . The ~eneral basis of our compact is a 60-40 division of the water stored m the Caddoa" officially known as the John Martin Reservoir, kept by the United ~tates Government for flood-control and water- conservation purposes, and administered by the Corps of Engineers. The storage which we. divide on that general 60-40 basis is of waters from the Puragtoire and Arkansas Rivers and their tribu- taries, hitherto-before construction of Caddoa-made not only un- available for practical use in irrigation, but damaging on account of floods. . The delay in the completion of the Caddoa Reservoir .because of the war situation-it was not finally completed until quite recently- will also explain why our negotiations could not be brought to an end earlier than they were. We operated by license of the Corps of Engineers, the uncompleted reservoir, beginning in 1942, with a lim- ited storage capacity, limited not only by the physical situation, but by the desire of the Army engineers to protect the construction. We handled that situation by what were called executive interim agreements between the Governors of the two States. Senator Schoep- . pel was for part of that time Governor of Kansas and participated. We found that they worked very well. The division of the water stored involves an administration which is perhaps more complicated